Big ugly giant rat invasion

[SusanO]

I have come out of lurkerdom to ask for help. I have four cats and have never had rats in my barn. An occasional mouse and sometimes a vole but no rats. About two weeks ago I found a huge dead rat in one of my horse’s water buckets. I thought maybe a neighbor had put out poison and the rat wandered over here and fell into the water bucket because the poison made it thirsty. Yuck!!!

Well tonight I went down to the barn to feed and opened the feed room door. There was another huge rat. This one was very much alive and not all that scared of me. I wish I had taken my 22 but I would have probably shot a hole in the wall and missed the rat. I do not want to use poison. This critter is too big for a glue trap or a snap trap. I have a TSC rat zapper but this rat is too big to fit in that and I doubt a battery would kill it. The only cat that could take it on is Gremlin the kitty Ninja but she isn’t much bigger than the rat and I really don’t want another vet bill. I am not getting a dog. I already have too many pets.

I saw the threads about the bucket traps and I am going to make one of those. If I have seen two of them I wonder how many are in there??? I have been feeding the birds sunflower seeds and I had to put the bag of them down in the feed room to keep the raccoons out of it. It seems sunflower seeds are rodent crack and now I have RATS. Ugh!!! the last time I saw these rats was many decades ago when I boarded and the rats ate through concrete floors and the barn owner called the exterminators who piped cyanide into the tunnels. I don’t want things to get that bad. And I really really don’t want to have to use poison. My cats are well fed but they get the hankering for “bush meat” from time to time…

So how do you eradicate monster rats?

[SuzieQNutter]

You can use a water trap. The only problem I see is that you don’t put enough water in to drown a cat and you said these rats are as big as your cat. If that is really the case I would keep the cats inside while you have the traps set.

You set it up so as there is a tin that spins when they step on it.

Remove all feed sources that you can and put the sunflower seeds or peanut butter. (It i said that mice and rats cannot walk past peanut butter) so as they step onto the tin, which spins and they fall into the water. Grease inside the tin.

Keep children away as well.

This yrap can catch hundreds a night if the bucket/drum is big enough.

Good luck.

[Hulk]

I have been told, don’t know if it is true, that if you leave coca cola out for them to drink it kills them. I was told that they can not burp. You could try this as it would be very inexpensive and safe for the other creatures such as cats.

[SPF10]

I feel your pain, we have one/some that are digging under the stall mats, but when I pull the mats back to replace the stone I am thankfully not seeing nests, so I don’t know if they are living somewhere in the barn or just visiting. I have not seen/smelled any sign of them other than the digging, they have not been in my tack/feed room. Hubby has wildlife traps he set, they tripped them but did not get caught in them. I have put out sticky traps and the Tomcat bait traps, no sign that they are coming near any of them, girl at my feed store said if they didn’t work to try Bubble Yum bubble gum, they love it and can’t digest it so they eventually die. I have one traditional snap type trap that I did put the gum on, we’ll see if it works, but so far nothing. Will have to try the peanut butter. Good Luck and let us know if you come up with something that works, it is disturbing how smart they seem to be:eek:

[DJohn]

Bucket traps work the best.

I made my horse beet pulp the other night, covered it with a towel. Came to the barn the next day and a dead mouse was floating in the bucket. So annoying when they ruined my horse’s dinner and I didn’t even WANT to kill them!

I’d suggest a big bucket (rain barrel cut in half), fill it up half way, make a string across to a spinning can and put delicious peanut butter on the can. They go nuts for that stuff.

Prepare to be grossed out though, even the smallest of dead rodents make me queasy!

[SuzieQNutter]

[QUOTE=DJohn;8095783]
Bucket traps work the best.

I’d suggest a big bucket (rain barrel cut in half), fill it up half way, make a string across to a spinning can and put delicious peanut butter on the can. They go nuts for that stuff.

Prepare to be grossed out though, even the smallest of dead rodents make me queasy![/QUOTE]

I don’t know how deep that is, but as I said don’t put in enough that will drown a cat or dog.