Rats....please help!!!!!!

[currycomb]

poision was only way to get rid of the rats i had. dogs wouldn't fight them, cats just shared food with them. maybe a rat terrier?

 

[bucknercrestfarm]

Dont put out poison we did one year and some how a baby got out and ate it it was so heart breaking. our pyrenees get rid of the mice and rats but you might want to call a locial cat rescue the get farel cats all the time and you may even get a few for free they will be spayed and nutered they just want some place they can go were the have some were to get away from weather and you be giving wild cats a job they will love! and doing a service to your locial shelters

 

[KlassieKeepsake]

The only way we've been successful killing rats was with poison[it is put in places where our animals are not allowed to go; so no problem with them getting to it,] as some others have said. I've had trouble with them in my barn, and whenever i start seeing them again we put poison out, then they relocate to somewhere else [most of the time, our neighbors place]

 

[elevan]

The water bucket method seems to work well for us.

I cannot believe how stupid they seem. I've found up to 8 rats in the bucket drowned at once.

 

[TigerLilly]

Whatever happened to using a b.b. gun? Am I showing my age?

 

[elevan]

Whatever happened to using a b.b. gun? Am I showing my age?

Every fall I go out with my shot gun and peg them off. A little bit of overkill but a lot of satisfaction. My boys think it's cool that Mom goes out to shoot rats. Small moving targets are hard to hit, but I hit what I aim at

 

[shelly_tn]

I just discovered I have a tiny mice problem. I mean the mice are seriously tiny, or they are just tiny babies who knows.

We will try some of these suggestions. We can use poison because it's in our workshop where no free animals roam. Our two rabbits are in there in cages so they can't get to the traps or poision. But the pitchfork method would never work with this tiny tiny mice.

 

[Electric]

The water bucket trick ALWAYS works with me , rats , mice, squirrels, everything

 

[savingdogs]

Something worth trying -- probably jsut once, as it doesn't tend to work on repeats unless it's been a year or three -- is to mix peanutbutter with as much dry plaster mix as you can get into it, to make a stiff dough. Roll it into marble-sized balls and put down the ratholes or in other appropriate locations. When they eat it -- if they eat it, but I've had good luck with it for just occasional use -- the plaster heats and hardens in their innards and they die. Sucky way to die; however, frankly there is no *nice* way to kill rats but you can't just hand the place over to them.

This is not good for other animals to eat so keep it out of reach of dogs and chickens and such; however its advantage over other poisons is that rats killed by this method remain 100% nontoxic to anything that might eat them. Also the peanutbutter-and-plaster balls tend to absorb moisture from the environment and harden on their own if not eaten, around here it takes like 1-3 days for that to happen, so any that go uneaten will not remain hazardous to other critters for very long.

The other thing I do around here, which may not be doable for everyone, is when a rat gets into my chicken bldg I shut all the doors so it can't get out (it's a good tight building, there are no holes or gaps) and then I chase it around til I can stomp or shovel-blade it to death.

Pat

Thank you for sharing this idea Pat. I have seen what happens to pets who consume rat poison way too many times to buy those products. I have a phobia about them, worked for veterinarians too long and it is not pretty.

That plaster sounds like a great idea to try! We had a lot of luck with a particular dog when we were having a rat issue at our old house. He wasn't even ours! But he came to visit and not only killed off the rats (it was a game to him), but he taught my golden retriever what a fun game it was, too. My golden has brought me warm rats he has just gone out and found and killed. Gross, but I'd rather they are dead than alive.

We find our cats are too small and get plenty of other small rodents but not rats. Perhaps because my cats are on the small to ordinary size.

 

[Beekissed]

I place JustOneBite bars in a small building adjacent to my coop that is locked up. This way the rats can get in, usually die right there in that same building and none of my animals can reach the poison or the dead rats. I have seen them crawl out into the yard, though, and the dogs, cat or chickens never try to eat them. Maybe they know it died unnaturally, but I've never seen a poisoned mouse or rat bothered at my place.

I find the JOB bars an excellent and quick solution to rodents.