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funnyjim014
06-18-2016, 01:55 PM
I live in a semi rural town... this morning I thought I was hearing a chipmunk running in my gutters and on steel roof...until I spotted a rat running under the deck. I never had to deal with rats before only mice. I put some pellet poison in cups mixed with peanut butter out and loaded the 22 Rev with shot shells. I don't have garbage outside but it's really dry this year and they may be looking for water. Any suggestions or tips for getting rid of these things. I hear they eat dog poop and haven't cleaned up lately maybe that's why there here

richhodg66
06-18-2016, 02:15 PM
I just don't like leaving poison around, but if it's someplace like an attic where cats and dogs can't get at it, the stuff works.

Those big Victor rat traps work. Only get one at a time, but kills 'em dead and probably won't hurt a pet.

funnyjim014
06-18-2016, 02:43 PM
Yea i think ill swing by wally world and get some traps. For mice i use a bucket trap ( 5 gal bucket with antifreeze in it with rap leading to a roller ontop) but i dont know how it would work with the larger rats

Ballistics in Scotland
06-18-2016, 02:51 PM
A concrete slab on three or four small rocks will make a place where pets can't get at the poison. I would rather shoot them than poison them - they didn't ask to be rats - but we seem to have an age-old instinct that makes them different from Chip 'n Dale, and it isn't personal, only business.

Don't give up if your traps or poison don't work at first. The rat instinctively avoids devices or food which are unfamiliar to it, but is ready to tackle them later. Some of the most effective poisons are designed to work over time, and a tentative nibble every night may convince the user it isn't working, when it is, and he will eat a lot more in a few days.

If you keep dogs, it would be a fine excuse for adding a small terrier to the strength. A cat will very often rest on his laurels after one a day, but a dog keeps score, and the rat knows it.

richhodg66
06-18-2016, 06:03 PM
I've heard that about terriers. Jack Russels and such are just too hyper for me. As to cats, it depends on the individual cat. We're found male cats to be the best for pets, but are worthless on average as hunters. The females seem to be the much more deadly of the two genders.

If you want to go the predator route, find a big bull snake or two and turn them loose in the yard, it'll find and kill ones no cat or dog will.

Mk42gunner
06-18-2016, 06:50 PM
Dachshund, rat terrier, just about any dog in the 12-20 pound range will do; as long as it still has the hunting instinct.

I think most of the "Jack Russell" terrier's in the US now are bred to be extra hyper pets, not actual hunting dogs. I had one that could stand flatfooted and jump five feet.

Robert

Bookworm
06-18-2016, 06:52 PM
First, get rid of the water source to get rid of rats. Mice can live on the moisture in the food they eat, but rats need liquid water. If you have dogs, water them indoors, or just at certain times of day.
Second, a Rat Terrier. Smaller than a Jack Russell, smooth coat dog. 15 lbs.
Had a dump-off that came to live with me, on my front porch . That dog was serious about killing small mammals. Squirrels, rabbits, gophers, mice, rats, whatever. Best mouser I ever had. Smartest dog I've ever been around too.
That dog could get rowdy at times, but if I fed it a lower protein food it would calm down, and hunt more also.

funnyjim014
06-18-2016, 06:52 PM
Well we have a basset... a couch potato type. Her nose tells me something is under our deck...I figured it was the rabbits. I set some Victor traps where I would think there going. Something already took some of the poison I put out early today

garym1a2
06-18-2016, 08:11 PM
Get a Rat Terrior like this one. He likes to hunt Rats, I have seen him clear out 5 in a job box in the feed room in just a few minutes. Like a good hunter he eats his kill.

170507

Boaz
06-18-2016, 08:34 PM
If Your using D Con or other poison the dogs will get sick or die if they eat the live or dead rats with the poison . If there are no pets just D Con the heck out of em .

trapper9260
06-18-2016, 08:41 PM
Yea i think ill swing by wally world and get some traps. For mice i use a bucket trap ( 5 gal bucket with antifreeze in it with rap leading to a roller ontop) but i dont know how it would work with the larger rats

You can use about the same idea of the bucket . but go with a barrel, that is high and deep and give them something to roll to drop in the barrel and put water or anitfreeze. but at this time of the year I would use water and make sure that there is nothing for them to get back out .If they do not drown .You can just shoot them in the barrel. with what you say about usen .

enfield
06-18-2016, 09:43 PM
I had to do away with a couple this year with the 22 Benjamin, they were coming out and getting seeds from under the bird feeder. I've never seen them come out in plane sight before.

funnyjim014
06-18-2016, 09:43 PM
Well I got one with a Victor snap trap...if there's one there's 5 more. I reset and will check in the am

victorfox
06-18-2016, 09:48 PM
Hate rats... Usually killed dozen or more a day with my old airgun after chores and before school... I second every one, get a small active dog and or a female cat (they are even more terrific when they have a litter!), and suggest you get an airgun if you don't have one.
good luck!

bstone5
06-18-2016, 09:53 PM
I had a dog, Buddy, that would spend hours hunting rats. After he caught one and killed it, Buddy would bring it to me to show what he had done.

After I would praise him for what he had done he would walk off and leave the rat for me to get rid of for him.

Buddy lived for 14 years a good dog and my last dog.

Travel overseas too much now for a dog.

smokeywolf
06-19-2016, 12:37 AM
We've had one or two investigating our garden. Time to service the pellet gun.

jcren
06-19-2016, 12:43 AM
We have good luck with the victor rat zapper traps. Fresh batteries and a little dog food is quite effective, and other critters aren't in danger.

Ballistics in Scotland
06-19-2016, 06:27 AM
If Your using D Con or other poison the dogs will get sick or die if they eat the live or dead rats with the poison . If there are no pets just D Con the heck out of em .

The same applies if someone else is doing it. Modern rat poisons are often intended to do a gradual job, so that the rat doesn't associate illness with his last meal. But it may be enough to make them move on.

Jack Russell terriers in the UK came in for the curse of excessive popularity, which gets a dog bred for excessive numbers. Some though not all are neurotically snappy. In Germany, where they have never been worth the puppy-mills' while (if there are puppy mills), they are a brighter and more balanced kind of dog. When my 88-year-old mother-in-law had surgery which put her in severe danger of a fall, and only then, he used to follow her and wait outside the bathroom door in case the alarm needed to be raised.170534

Lanty Hanlon, on the other hand, is as manic as anything, and the fastest thing his size without whippet blood, but loves anything on four legs or two, and even now that the hormones are kicking in, considers cats in the garden as interesting visitors. Even with threats from much larger dogs, he quietly says "You don't know what an Irish terrier is, do you?" He might turn out an effective rodenticide, given the chance, but anyone acquiring one for the purpose would be taking a chance.

My money would be on a cairn terrier, like Toto in "The Wizard of Oz". The one we had in my childhood was motivated fundamentally by jealousy, bullied the Labrador and collies shamefully, and outdid all of them in her ability to make a cunning plan. But she never actually did anything violent.

DerekP Houston
06-19-2016, 06:53 AM
Well I got one with a Victor snap trap...if there's one there's 5 more. I reset and will check in the am

I tried all the "humane" traps back at our last rental a few years ago. I found the cheap snap traps still work the best, just have to keep them baited. I've seen 1 rat here in Houston so far, due to all the flooding lately there's a lot of animals getting moved around. I'm not a big fan of the poison because I don't want a dead rat hiding in the walls/wood pile etc for my dogs to find. I'd rather have my proof and toss it out with the trash.

WRideout
06-19-2016, 07:16 AM
When I lived in Knoxville, TN, I had a dog named Lucy that was half hound and half airdale. She got none of the good qualities of either breed. At one time, back in the nineties, a patch of woods was cleared near our house, and we had an infestation of rats move into the residential neighborhood. They actually took up living quarters in and under the dog's house. They ate the dogs food, and drank her water. I shot one with an air rifle while in my pajamas as it was drinking from the dog dish. I tried to claim redneck points for that, but was told that it only counts if you use a weapon that will awaken the neighbors and arouse suspicion.

I finally decided to put out Dcon poison, at a location that I thought was safe, however the dog did find it and ate almost a whole box. I quickly discovered that there was actually a pet emergency room in town, and I had the thrill of watching my pet upchuck her stomach contents. Once the Dcon was moved to the other side of the fence we quickly got rid of the rat problem. Poor Lucy, she was such a "special" dog. She has since gone to her reward.

Wayne

Ballistics in Scotland
06-19-2016, 07:49 AM
I tried all the "humane" traps back at our last rental a few years ago. I found the cheap snap traps still work the best, just have to keep them baited. I've seen 1 rat here in Houston so far, due to all the flooding lately there's a lot of animals getting moved around. I'm not a big fan of the poison because I don't want a dead rat hiding in the walls/wood pile etc for my dogs to find. I'd rather have my proof and toss it out with the trash.

I used to trap mice in my office in Saudi Arabia with a plastic live trap I brought from the UK, and paroled them in a dumpster beyond homing distance. I didn't tell my merry little bunch of Bedouin how I did it, and I heard them telling their friends "W'allah, very fast for an old man." But we have that oddly different attitude to the rat, and for them I think those snap traps are the best bet. Don't worry if they seem to be acquiring the knack of filching the bait without setting the thing off, for it isn't an insurable occupation, and they are bound to get careless and slip up soon. You can always put an unbaited one where they have to stand to get at the baited one.

Here is the mouse that spent a long vacation opening UHT milk cartons on top of the paperwork in my desk drawer. He is the common worldwide house-mouse, but with the reddish coloration Churchill described in the Sudan in 1898.

170543

DerekP Houston
06-19-2016, 08:00 AM
I used to trap mice in my office in Saudi Arabia with a plastic live trap I brought from the UK, and paroled them in a dumpster beyond homing distance. I didn't tell my merry little bunch of Bedouin how I did it, and I heard them telling their friends "W'allah, very fast for an old man." But we have that oddly different attitude to the rat, and for them I think those snap traps are the best bet. Don't worry if they seem to be acquiring the knack of filching the bait without setting the thing off, for it isn't an insurable occupation, and they are bound to get careless and slip up soon. You can always put an unbaited one where they have to stand to get at the baited one.

Here is the mouse that spent a long vacation opening UHT milk cartons on top of the paperwork in my desk drawer. He is the common worldwide house-mouse, but with the reddish coloration Churchill described in the Sudan in 1898.

170543

my opinion is, live and let live if they are outside and not digging up my trash etc. But once they start coming inside and going after dog food, the traps come out to cure those nuisance pests. I have a banana patch in the backyard, there are occasionally a few small snakes that I leave alone to help control any other issues.

richhodg66
06-19-2016, 09:37 AM
Back in college in the old barracks we lived in we had a mouse problem when I lived in a four man room. One of my buddies took an empty Pringle's potato chip can and attached a string to the top of it, put some bait and left it on it's side with bait in the bottom after running the string over the top of one of the desks. After turning the lights off, you could hear when a mouse would go in the can to eat the bait, then simply pulled the string to lift the can upright. Because the cans are tall and narrow and slick inside, the mouse couldn't climb out. Worked pretty well, but does require someone monitoring it all the time for it to work.

Ballistics in Scotland
06-19-2016, 02:47 PM
My mother used to be on standby duty in the basement of an old hospital annexe which was reopened wartime. She used to sit with a breakback trap and a wastepaper basket, and learned to tip them out and reset it without taking her eyes from her book. She finished her shift after her own personal German bomb failed to go off a few feet away, and the water-main it burst did away with the mice.