tomato leaves eaten....

[Katra]

Thanks for understanding..... :-)

K.

[Rez]

Another method I forgot about that works and will absolutely prevent escapes, is to take a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, fill it half to

2/3rds full of water, put a rat-sized hole in the lid, then smear peanut butter or molasses on the inside of the lid near the edge, so they have to really reach for it and lose their grip on the edge of the hole, thus fall in and drown.

I probably drowned a couple hundred rats just in an open bucket one year, and it wasn't even the only water around, just somewhere curious rats liked to snoop in. Evidently they never get wise to it.

~REZ~

[Rez]

Thank you :)

I like pigeons, they're cool birds. We have a few dove here but no pigeons. I've thought about starting a colony, at least once I get the shop building closed off enough that they don't decide to live in there!

Being lazy, I usually feed my pigeons and chickens (when I have 'em, none right now) dog food, same as the dogs eat. Aside from really good eggshells (yes, even tho they are thick, the chicks have no trouble getting out) the birds get so they won't eat regular bird food unless they're starving. In fact when I toss 'em grain, they'll get all excited the way birds do, rush over to the feed -- stop short and look at me like "What's this crap? What are you trying to push on us??!"

~REZ~

[Rez]

Norway rats are probably smarter than roof rats, which is what we had where I used to live. Roof rats are so bold they run around in packs in broad daylight. They're not very big tho, a little smaller than typical "pet rats".

~REZ~

[Katra]

Oh, I LIKE this! :-)

I need to go and get some buckets with lids!!!!!!

Thanks! K. (who is really going to try this one right away!)

[Katra]

Yeah, they will nest anywhere that provides convenient shelving, and it can get rather poopy.

That sounds expensive! Sure won't hurt them tho'. Chicken and pigeon feed is about $7.00 for 50 lbs. Dog food is twice that...

Most of my pigeons eat pretty much for free since they fly free, but they do gather around for the morning scratch feedings in the henyard.

I don't blame them. Dog food is higher in protien!

K.

[Katra]

These are as large or slightly larger than pet rats, and they are pretty smart and bold. Mostly nocturnal, they don't always run away right away when I find them, which is why I can hand-kill from time to time.

I think they are catching on tho'. :-( It's been harder for me to capture them lately.

K.

[Rez]

I never even bothered with the lid part, but if you have a need to bait 'em to the bucket, it makes a handy place to smear the bait!

~REZ~

[Rez]

It already does with just sparrows nesting in there.

But they eat half as much of it, and they do better. My 14 year old pigeon was like a young bird and was fixin' to break the world record (18 yrs; lost him cuz one of the dogs got out and got into the cage :( and I had yard chickens that made it to 12 years old!

Why turn down free meals? :)

And apparently far more appealing!

~REZ~

[Rez]

I just heard of another type of rat killing device, it's like a bug zapper only for rodents; you put it in a piece of sewer pipe. Person who told me about it said it works really well, but didn't know where to get one.

Problem is, when you can only catch the dumb ones, it lets the smart ones breed :(

~REZ~

[Ray Drouillard]

If you want to do things by hand, one of those propane weed burners ought to do well -- and you won't have to touch the animal.

Ray

[Ray Drouillard]

efficient

The general trick is to store the grain in a metal trash can or something like that. Also, those dangling metal tube feeders work well -- as long as the rat can't climb down whatever it is you dangle the feeder from.

We had rats in our henhouse when I was a kid. My dad made a bait box with a hole that's large enough for a rat to enter, but would keep a chicken out. He put anticoagulant (warfarin) type rat poison into the box every day. Sick and dying rats literally came out of the woodwork after a few days.

It takes more than one dose to kill the rats, so the secret is to buy five pounds or more of rat pellets, then keep the bait box filled. Just putting out a box or two of d-con won't do it. The rats just get sick, then get over it.

After a while, the dead rats stopped appearing and the poison pellets stopped disappearing. We haven't had rat problems since then.

Ray

[Katra]

But they might escape! :-P Enough get away as it is if I wait too long to check the nests.

If they are small enough, the chickens enjoy eating baby rats.

I've gotten pretty good at the snatch them by the tail and bash them killing method.

But, thanks anyhoo! :-)

K.

[Katra]

That would be ok, but a lot of grain ends up on the ground, especially scratch feed. My storage is metal containers as rats would chew thru plastic.

Yes, that works. I use bar bait poisons and put them into suet cages, and place them so that the chickens cannot get to them, or get to the crumbs. You also have to make it so that the rats cannot carry off the bars so the chickens might gain acess to them, hence the suet cages. :-)

When I start poisoning, yes, I do use a lot of it. The rats start dying after about 5 days and die near water containers pretty much out in the open, which is nice as dead rast _stink_! :-P Bleeding to death makes them thirsty.

Mine is periodic. I can wipe out the local population, but my neighbors don't use any rat control and there is a lot of trash in the lots out back. :-( Nothing I can do about that except for complaining to the city, so the rats re-populate about every 2 years. This year is just really bad!!! I am going on a major poison spree here shortly, and will also set up some bucket drowning traps as was suggested earlier.

Thanks for the input. :-)

K.

[Rez]

Ah, good time to use the water traps to ensure the job :)

~REZ~

[Katra]

Yep! ;-)

K.