How do you get rid of rats when you have pets and cannot use poison?

Question

Our entire neighborhood is infested with rats since they are building a new development down the street. We have killed a few rats with traps, but our dogs are getting smarter and starting to eat the bait (peanut butter) and I'm afraid they are going to get snapped by the trap. What else do people use? The exterminator gave up!

Answer 1

Ugh! We went through this a few summers ago and it was terrible. I can truly sympathize. The rats were getting into people's cars and chewing through hoses and seat cushions, and drowning in swimming pools and getting into attics... gross. When we would sit on the porch at night and look into the trees, there would be rats hopping around up there. Shudder!!!

Find out what kind of rats they are for starters. (I know more than I ever wanted to know now about roof rats! That's the kind we have.) The other usual kind are Norway rats. They're the super big ones. The roof rats are big enough, thank you very much!

If yours are roof rats it doesn't do a whole lot of good to put traps and bait out along the floor because they go for high places.

Rats are incredibly smart. You think your dogs are smart? The rats have post docs from rodent Harvard. This makes it difficult for me, a soft hearted animal lover to kill them, but that one terrible summer I had to get over it.

The problem with snap traps is that the rats only have to see it work once and they'll never go near it again, so you basically can only catch one rat in one location. You have to move the darned things.

But the trick there is that they won't use it immediately. You have to wait for a dumbish rat to try it, and I've found that they usually catch baby rats. (There's no such thing as a dumb rat, really, just a less experienced rat.) The adults are too smart to fall for rat traps if they've seen their compadre's fall in one. Some adult rats know how to get the bait without being snapped... umbelievable.

In a whole year I only caught one rat with a humane trap and it was a baby. I put the best food in there and none of them wanted to mess with it. We did manage to catch our kids' hamsters using the humane trap when they got out, but not rats.

Poison was the only thing that really worked, so we put it up on shelves up high in the garage and in the attic. We couldn't put it where the animals could get it (we have cats and dogs, too.) I wasn't happy with that solution

You can try using those sticky traps, but the problem there is that you then have a live rat stuck to the trap and you still have to kill it. We found the best way was to put it in a trash can with an open container of starter fluid and put the lid on. The rat goes to sleep and dies.

If you are a gardener, do not keep a compost pile outside, even with a lid. Rats love compost.

Make sure all food sources are covered and locked down tight. I had the problem of a large water source- I have a water garden. I couldn't do anything about that but we could eliminate food sources by being careful how we bagged trash, etc.

Answer 2

There is one that is kind of barbaric. It is a bucket trap. They are very simple to make and are pretty effective.

http://journeytoforever.org/at_rattrap3.html

The idea is that it is a bucket of water with an ear of corn that is impaled with a rod and placed over the bucket in a way where it can easily rotate. The rat climbs the rod to get to the corn but it is a tricky thing to do since the corn and rod can rotate and spin. The rat will slip and fall into the bucket where it has no way out and will drown.

The article I posted says to bury the bucket at ground level. This will mean that the dog can still probably reach the corn (which they recommend putting some peanut butter on to help entice the rats). A bit of screen or chicken wire in the shape of a tent might prevent the dog from getting to the bait. At the very least, this trap cannot accidentally get the dog unless it is a very small dog.

I saw this on a documentory about a mouse population explosion in Australia. The farmers and ranchers there were using it to kill off the mice in very large numbers.

It is pretty cruel to trap the rat and let it drown, but that is safer than living with a rat population. Rats can get pretty mean and there is always the disease factor.

Answer 3

rats do get smart to snap traps, but here's a tip for a little better success with that type of trap: tie a good sized crumb of cracker onto the baiting area with a little bit of string. That way they actually have to gnaw and pull to get the bait instead of tenderly licking it off.

Also, DON'T USE POISON! even if you put the poison out of your pet's reach, there is a possibility that the dead mouse may be eaten by another animal and the poison is still in that mouse!

Glue traps work best if you can secure them to the floor or to whatever surface you put them on. I used them in my old house and i would find those glue traps in the weirdest places because the mouse would get a leg or tail caught and drag the trap around until it could find something to squeeze through that the trap wouldn't fit through and pull itself right off of the dang thing!

Now we use the electronic repellents. They seem to work great and pets don't hear them.

Answer 4

We deal with them here in Hawaii too, so what we all use, are bait stations, that is a black plastic box, with poison inside. The dogs and cats can not get inside, as there is a small hole only for the rat to enter, he eats the poison, then goes back to his nest and dies. The traps are checked every 3 months, sometimes less, and then more poison is put inside. Also, get a few cats running around there, and they will wipe out the rats.

Answer 5

if you have a fence, try to wood up any opening that they might fit into.

get some traps for deacon a rat poison so the rats can eat but is too small for the dogs plus I don't think they would be interested in the smell.

place them strategically out of the way of the dogs, corners, just under the fence or gate. that kind of thing.

if you don't have a gait then I hope you can make a small box and attach it to something so the dogs can't knock it over, put the deacon with Little peanut butter in the holder and hope for the best.

you won't get rid of all of them for along time but you can continue to call the exterminator for the city out to your area he can spray or bait.

Answer 6

Call the town health department. They should assist in the treatment of rats in a neighbor as long as others are complaining also.

If your exterminator gave up, find a better one.

The rodent baits that are available are the best solution. They should be secured in a tamper-proof bait station and pets/kids will have no access.

Good Luck

Answer 7

Ninja suits and 410 Shotguns.

God Bless

Answer 8

glue traps