Thread: Got a rat problem?

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!

Originally Posted by JMS

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!

Sounds like my dog. She was the sweetest thing ever but would kill almost any mean creature out there. I went outside one day and she was growling up a storm at one of the meanest, biggest opossums I've seen. I tried to call her away, but she wouldn't budge until she at least injured it. At that point I was able to get her away, shoot the opossum, and bury it.

Mark, re-route your exclamation key from your period key

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

Mark, re-route your exclamation key from your period key

Old habits are hard to break, but you'll notice there are less exclamation points in that post than normal *fights to keep finger from exclamation key* .

Lol, I think I see two periods peeking out of that entire thing. I guess progress is progress

Hey Mark, If Rusty is such a badass, why doesn't he kill your rats?

I live in Florida. My backyard is a wetland, I'm also quite close to a river. I had problems with rodents for a while. I saw the Rat Zapper, almost bought it, but instead, I found some stuff called "just one bite" I have no pets. The rats actually chewed through my screens in my screen room. The poison worked, and I haven't seen one since....I'm glad to hear that rat zapper worked....I'm thinking, Where are all the snakes?

too bad the dog can't get along with the cats, what if they were introduced to him when young? My grandparents had a ranch when I was a kid. almonds and some catttle. big hay barn. they had 17 cats, including two siamese that were mean as satan. the female was bigger, they said 17-18lbs. they had lots of ranch dogs, one went after her, she layed his shoulder open to the bone

the male was standard size, incredible hunter they said, he'd bring rabbits, birds, anything you can imagine, lay with them outside back door.

I was young when they sold the ranch, about 10? I asked my grandpa what they did with the cats "lead poisoning" took me a few years to understand what he meant.

I hate all rodents when it comes to my house. filthy disease ridden buggers.

Red

Once again I agree with Jockeys! I was going to suggest shotshell 22LR cartridges. I too had a small mouse problem a few months ago. We had the first cold snap here and then started to hear scratching in the walls. Well the wife was tiring of it so I set a trap on the counter with peanut butter. BOOM!!! Got one the first night! Couldn't figure out how he ate all the bait then the trap triggered???????? Figured it out. He was killed quite effectively while dining on the bait, then his buddy seeing that all was safe decided to finish his "dinner". No worries, I got his buddy the next night. Funny thing was he was a pudgy little bugger too. Got 2 more after that and have not seen anymore droppings, nor have I heard anymore scratching.