Rattie

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British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
Best bait I've encountered is peanut butter. Rats are neophobic (they don't like new things), so leave the trap out unsprung for a week but baited to let them get used to it. They like to skirt walls (will rarely cross an open building but run around the walls) which can help with where to site the trap. Cover the cage in a sack like a tunnel - rats like the dark
 
Jul 30, 2012
3,570
224
westmidlands
something like this was posted on another thread

www.geekation.com/redneck-but-genius-diy-ratmousesquirrel-trap/

might be worth a try as it's a live capture one. I don't know how high a rat jumps, but I had a mouse in a bucket the other day, and it jumped 10 inches, almost out the bucket. Maybe a rim around the top of a 2 foot lined hole ? Also they start to cannibalise when they get hungry so no morality concience trouble !
 

BillyBlade

Settler
Jul 27, 2011
748
3
Lanarkshire
Horrible beasts rats, and with the rise in garden decking, more prolific and closer to home than any time in the last 50 years.

.22 the flea carrying little plague pit.
 

xylaria

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Keeping food waste in sealed bins, I do a anaerobic liquid manure from kitchen waste after realising no matter what I did with aerobic compost it attracted rats. They ate through a rat proof bin. Everything else is up to Mango the Mad Manx [before some smarty pants points out , yes he has a tail, it is about 6 inches long] but he sure moves fast for a fat kid.

 
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Spaniel man

Native
Apr 28, 2007
1,033
2
Somerset
I've used loads of different traps over the years, but one of the most effective (and cheapest) I've used is a simple swing top bin half filled with water, with a bit of peanut butter smeared on the lid. Add a little ramp or place it so rattie can jump onto it, and in they go. We've got two up in the barn where we keep cattle and sheep feed and probably pull out 3 or 4 of the little sods a week. As Red says, get them used to any strange object or bait you are using. A week is usually good enough for them to see it as no threat. They are cunning little blighters..
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Shewie

Mod
Mod
Dec 15, 2005
24,259
24
48
Yorkshire
I used to go "ratting" in my younger days on a friends farm, with trousers tucked into socks, headlamp and pellets turned backwards in a .22 air rifle.
 

tommy the cat

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 6, 2007
2,138
1
55
SHROPSHIRE UK
Well I guess the subject is useful as I'm guessing rats are inevitable on a homestead??!!
All suggestions noted... I'll try and sort out a trap tomorrow.
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
Inevitable and persistent - its about learning to deal with them - if you have livestock particularly
 

Demonwolf444

Tenderfoot
May 18, 2013
82
0
Ripon, North Yorkshire
You will get rats if you have food.

Case point - I do Rat controll specifically for a farmer.
Farmers make sugar beat and root veg storage clamps ( what they pile all the food in ) out of straw bales. Why? its cheap, its easy, it can be done anywhere, it provides a good clamp, doesn't require any paper work, if you need a bigger clamp, add more bales!

Anyway, straw is a nice easy thing for rats to nest in, and nice and warm in winter, and safe from predators. The food piled up in it is a full of sugar, and close by, so we have the perfect situation for any kind of vermin. Winter strikes, Rats come in off the land and group together in warm places - normal rat behavior, survival mechanism for vermin. Because of the perfect environment this created they stayed and bred. All year, for about two years they lived off the rotting sugarbeat at the back of the clamp. Then the clamp was cleared out, but the rotting food was left. I got a call and in that first week we shot 384 all during the day, on the first day we shot 146. By the time i switched to lamping we had well over 500 out of that clamp. When need made me create a night vision rig i added another 100 to that and also found other nests near by. Rats are vermin and will opportunisticallyr eat and create living quarters near food. The only thing i can see that limits their size is their access to food and the size of their runs, ( which in the case above made a small rabbit warren ).The foods gone and this year their are no rats in that area ( more down to the lack of food than anything else. )
 

The Survivor

Nomad
Feb 1, 2013
408
0
28
On Earth
How long has he been around? cause our we rat (who lived in the composter!) left when it turned summer. I would leave him for a little while.
 

Big Si

Full Member
Dec 27, 2005
404
52
58
nottinghamshire
Shooting rats is a close range occupation, they are fast as well. I have one rifle set up just for them with the scope parallax set short and the point of aim at 25 yds. I either use flat headed pellets or the hollow point ones, it's all to do with the transfer of the shock wave. Rats will eat their own, I've seen them take there dead and eat them. I some times ise cat food minced down then a tin of sweet corn, you can watch the bait at dusk and see the shapes as they carry of the meet and yellow corn. Then bang. Before I got NV gear that is!

Si
 

Macaroon

A bemused & bewildered
Jan 5, 2013
7,209
362
73
SE Wales
DO NOT leave rats alive to breed!!! For every one you see in daylight there are at least another six you can't see, and they breed at an incredible rate; add to this eighteen months of mild weather which has meant abundant food and almost continuous breeding...............They're a menace in health terms and they eat enormous amounts of grain and stuff, and contaminate it in the process.

The real cause for concern is, however, leptospirosis, a viral liver disease which a very dangerous and unpleasant thing to get at the best end of it and life threatening at the worst; even if you get over it you'll never be the same again and it's on the increase in a big way.

Rats dribble urine continuously as they go about and it gets on everything they go near, and that's where the lepto comes from. All the time it's wet, it's active, and all the time it's over four degrees C it's active and transfers readily through the tiniest nick in the skin, or by touching your mouth with hands or clothing that've been in contact. It's all over your dog's and your cat's feet and bodies but they're innoculated, but you're not and neither are your kids when they bring it in from the garden or the fields................

Get rid of the little sods on sight and stop stupidly anthropomorphising and causing problems for everyone else....

Red in tooth and claw!!!
 

Spaniel man

Native
Apr 28, 2007
1,033
2
Somerset
DO NOT leave rats alive to breed!!! For every one you see in daylight there are at least another six you can't see, and they breed at an incredible rate; add to this eighteen months of mild weather which has meant abundant food and almost continuous breeding...............They're a menace in health terms and they eat enormous amounts of grain and stuff, and contaminate it in the process.

The real cause for concern is, however, leptospirosis, a viral liver disease which a very dangerous and unpleasant thing to get at the best end of it and life threatening at the worst; even if you get over it you'll never be the same again and it's on the increase in a big way.

Rats dribble urine continuously as they go about and it gets on everything they go near, and that's where the lepto comes from. All the time it's wet, it's active, and all the time it's over four degrees C it's active and transfers readily through the tiniest nick in the skin, or by touching your mouth with hands or clothing that've been in contact. It's all over your dog's and your cat's feet and bodies but they're innoculated, but you're not and neither are your kids when they bring it in from the garden or the fields................

Get rid of the little sods on sight and stop stupidly anthropomorphising and causing problems for everyone else....

Red in tooth and claw!!!

Agreed, kill all that you can, it's not like they will be on the endangered list any time soon. I once read a story where a kid died of leptospirosis, from drinking a can of soda stored in a boat locker that rats had been in. Makes me think more carefully about where I store my spare beer and wine!
 

dwardo

Bushcrafter through and through
Aug 30, 2006
6,451
475
46
Nr Chester
Just had to lend a friend my rifle for this purpose. Once they are onto a good thing they dont just move on. Amazing creatures especially being able to chew through concrete.
I hear they dont like glass so we are going to try and patch up some of the gaps and see if that deters them.
 

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