Thread: Got a rat problem?

have you tried getting some barn cats?

Originally Posted by mhailey

I had a rat problem once, and I filled a 5 gallon bucket 1/2 way with water, floated a bunch of sunflower seeds on top, so that they covered the water, and looked like a bucket full of seeds, and then put a little ramp going up to the top of the bucket. The dirtly little suckers would climb the ramp, jump in to get a bunch of great seeds, and eventually drowned.

Clever. A similar method is to put a round pole resting over a barrel of water. The rats start walking over the pole, it starts to spin and they fall in. I guess rats aren't too smart.

You can't put poison up high on a sill or something where the dog can't get it? I have a dog and that's what I do.

Rat electric chair, I like that, just wonder what it would do to a Yorkie?

Living out in the sticks we have more problems with field mice, but when I'm up late at night I hear things go bang that sounds like it was made by a critter as large as our 10 lb Yorkie. We put poison in the closet with the hot water heater, seems they habitually make that a hidey hole.

Mr. Toes gets at least one mouse/week. He's good. But the rat thing, well they are scary. We had one that used to show up on the counter at the wee hours before Mr. Toes was around. I put out a spring trap and late one night I heard the trap snap. In the morning I went down and there was a 1.5 lb Norway rat a foot away from the trap. The bastard got himself out of the trap before he died! There was alot of blood. It really wasn't nice. Now with the cat and the dog, I occassionally hear a rat gnawing in te wall but they never show their little faces. I think the cat is really a great rat deterrent force. Plus he makes me laugh.

I use a bait block called "Just one bite", that stuff works, I keep it away from the dog, the rats will eat from it and then go hide to die.

the last time I saw a rat in my house, I simply shot it with a .22 revolver.

There's a rat in me kitchen, what am I gonna do?

Seems a lot of people favor the poison, but my problem was I had one die in the wall, and started decomposing. Man that smell is something I will never forget. After being forced to rip out part of the wall to get his nasty little decomposing body out of my house, I swore I would never use poison again.

Matt

The problem with poison is that Rusty is a hunter and scavenger! If he can catch it he will eat it and if it is on the ground he lays claim to it! If he eats enough of the poisoned rats before I can gather them, the poison could kill him! It takes a month for the poison to leave the body once ingested, so, where one or 2 rats in a month wont hurt Rusty, 2 a week could potentially be fatal!
As for cats, they would be a tasty meal for Rusty! We had a feral cat that lived in the area. A big mean black cat! I am told that it lived in the area for more than 2 years. the coyotes wouldn't even touch this cat, and most dogs I have known will engage a feral cat in battle and once the cat begins to fight back, the dog high tails it out of there! Not Rusty! I heard the barks one night at about 12 am. I stepped outside to see rusty jumping back and forth in circles around the very angry feral cat who stood his ground! Rusty lunged, the cat slapped, rusty backed off and lunged again, the cat slapped again! I tried to chase rusty off but he was having none of it! He grabbed the cat around its middle and shook the cat! the cats claws dug into Rusty's face! I pulled Rusty away to give the cat a chance to escape and he did! I let rusty go but apparently the cat came back because the next morning Rusty was strutting around the yard with the dead feral cat in his mouth!