My apologies for this slightly off-topic post, but I thought some of you might be up for a good murder mystery:
I placed yesterday 5 snap traps (one rat-sized and 5 mice-sized) in my attic after finding evidence of rodents. On my way up to check the traps this morning I was somewhat shocked to find the lower portion of a rat carcass several feet away from where I had placed the nearest trap, some rat innards a couple feet from the carcass, but no (discernable) head. Of the 5 traps I had set, 4 had NOT been triggered (including the large rat trap) and one of the mice traps was missing. I have a hard time believing that a mouse trap would pulverize a decent sized rat in the manner I saw. Given that the mouse trap was nowhere to be found (I searched pretty well for it), I have no idea how this rat met its demise. I initially thought that the rat might have ripped itself apart trying to escape the trap, but this seems unlikely and, again, I found no trap. I almost wonder whether a predator was the culprit, rather than the missing trap, but I haven't heard any owls or cats in the attic, only the scratching sounds of rodents. Have rats been known to scavenge their own then drag off the trap that their buddies were killed in? (these were scented Victor traps -- no bait required) Has anyone experienced anything like this? Any ideas about how this may have happened?
W.D.