RATs- farm people-TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE DOING about it

[Crockpot]

This seems to be a bad year for rats

never ever had a problem for 15 yeARS at my farm but they are here now. All my grain is in metal bins and there is no food anywhere they can get at but suddenly they are here.- house and barn-

So what are you doing aBout rATS?

i HAVE ZAPPERS and noise things to drive them off

STILL reluctant about poison because worried about secondary poisoning = I know my old barn cat will eat any rat carcass he finds

I wont do glue traps ( instant death more humane) and have not had good luck with regular snap traps and zappers- they are smart.

So what as worked for you. I am not sleeping- need kind help

I guess I have to do poison and risk killing my dear old cat but hoping for other suggestions

[Leather]

Have you tried a bucket trap? Lots of designs out there.
https://youtu.be/OijRH-lduq4

Here’s a homemade bait that won’t cause secondary poisoning:
https://youtu.be/ncEVHthmGNE

[cayuse]

I had a rat infestation about four years ago and we ended up having to go the poison route which I hated to do. But we were loaded with them and they were huge (like Stephen King novel huge) and getting aggressive.
We tried the noise things, too and they were ineffective.
Can you relocate the barn kitty if you have to bait?

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=cayuse;8415357]
I had a rat infestation about four years ago and we ended up having to go the poison route which I hated to do. But we were loaded with them and they were huge (like Stephen King novel huge) and getting aggressive.
We tried the noise things, too and they were ineffective.
Can you relocate the barn kitty if you have to bait?[/QUOTE]
aggressive? fo’ real?

OP, buy some snakes.

[Foxtrot_s]

We resort to poison but have no barn cat. It has to be done very meticulously on a regular basis as rats get pregnant right after they have given birth - virtual machines for producing ratlets. We break the bait up a bit hoping the bits will be carried back to the nest.

Good news is that mice and rats do not co-habit (rats eat mice babies).

I use the one bite bait - never seen a rat carcass - possibly because they re all under the barn floor boards.

When we quit the program, the rats come back, so we are only controlling it, I guess. Hate those things.

[ponygirl]

I ended up doing a few things. I basically took the food source away. Chicken feed is put away at night so they don’t have that. I ensure that there is no grain left in stalls. I created a bucket trap which unfortunately only caught about 1 million ants as ants love peanut butter. I did put out snap traps and caught a few. We started shooting them at night with bird shot and then I finally broke down and got two barn cats a couple of months ago. I have to say that there has been a significant decrease in rats but the removing the food source was the big one.

[beau159]

Growing up on my parent’s farm, we were always lucky to have darn good farm cats. They never would eat the rats after they caught them, but they sure caught them. And promptly brought them to the front door to show us their fine catch. :eek:

One of our cats routinely came home with small BUNNIES too. And one day, while I was messing with the horses, I watched the one cat bring home NINE gophers in a couple hours; and those were just the ones I saw her bringing home!! Always wonder how many more she caught. Would never have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.

Good cats always did the trick for us.

[Equibrit]

I used this and never saw a rat body. http://www.harris22.com/rat-mouse-killer/ Placed where the dogs couldn’t get it. Since clearing out the infestation, the dogs take care of them.

[cayuse]

[QUOTE=beowulf;8415372]
aggressive? fo’ real?

OP, buy some snakes.[/QUOTE]

Yup, aggressive. Had one jump at me. Once was enough.

[Epona142]

We refuse to use poison here at the dairy, so we employ an aggressive mixture of cats, ratting dogs, and my husband has taken inspiration from some great Youtube videos and has started laying on top of the big hay bales and sniping them at night in the barn with an air rile.

[SomedaySoon]

Broke down and used the poison, kept the cats locked up for a week or so. If they’d been doing their job…

[Linda]

Traps! We dont have rats, but we have raccoons and those guys are NASTY…and messy. We catch them in humane traps and my husband drives out into the countryside about 5 or 6 miles away and releases them. Havent had any return to the barn and lately we have not had any new ones come to the barn. (we spray them with a stripe of green spray paint while they are still in the trap so we can tell if the “new raccoon” is really new or a returning visitor The raccoons are smart and get into the trashcans with horse feed (sometimes they even get the cords off the tops of the cans that are supposed to be keeping the lids on. And they are NASTY. Rellocating them worked. Thankfully havent had any in over a month

[Foxtrot_s]

Raccoons are destructive, rotten things…we have a trap and lend it out all the time in our business, but always tell people to release them in a raccoon area, not to infest an area that does not have them already. Studies in Toronto said they tend to have a stamping ground of a few blocks in size and just patrol their own area.

We actually do not have them here - not treed enough and not that inviting for coons, but I would sure be upset if someone seeded my area with newcomers.

[ASB_Stars]

It isn’t just the cats and dogs you need to worry about, with poison. If the rats go outside to die, and any local birds of prey get them, they’re done. I have used rat poison in the past, because cats do not survive here (barn is too close to the road, and they get dead). One day, after reading about the possible danger to birds of prey, I found a dead hawk in my front yard. I don’t know if it was the poison- I mean, it does take a while to work- but I haven’t used any rat poison since. I have a new rat here who is starting to wreak havoc, and I am torn on how to deal with it.

[HorsesinHaiti]

Many years ago, we gave my dairy-farming aunt one of our fox terrier’s puppies to help with her rats. That took care of her rats. But you and your cat have to like fox terriers.

[Manni01]

[QUOTE=ASB Stars;8415718]
It isn’t just the cats and dogs you need to worry about, with poison. If the rats go outside to die, and any local birds of prey get them, they’re done. I have used rat poison in the past, because cats do not survive here (barn is too close to the road, and they get dead). One day, after reading about the possible danger to birds of prey, I found a dead hawk in my front yard. I don’t know if it was the poison- I mean, it does take a while to work- but I haven’t used any rat poison since. I have a new rat here who is starting to wreak havoc, and I am torn on how to deal with it.[/QUOTE]

Well I feel bad now, because I had the same experience… I found a dead hawk in front of my barn when I first started with poison. But I continued with the rat poison and neither my dogs nor the cat had any problems so far and I have no more rats. Not sure maybe the cat finished them off, because she is very good in killing rats, but I just keep the boxes there and refill them once in a while with rat poison and the combination of the cat and poison is perfect. And I had no more dead hawks as well…

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=cayuse;8415463]
Yup, aggressive. Had one jump at me. Once was enough.[/QUOTE]

are you sure he wasn’t jumping out of terror? how far away were you? rats have horrible eyesight – they really can only see a foot or two in front of them… i would be very very surprised to hear of a rat that jumped at you out of aggression.

[cayuse]

OK, good to know about the vision, thank you. I was about four feet away, I would guesstimate. I expected it to scurry off like they usually did, but it launched itself at me for whatever the reason. I took it to be aggression as I did not provoke it, but you are correct it could’ve been fear.

[Crockpot]

What type of poison are you all using? I have been reading up on this. Looks the the first generation poisons so called are less risky for secondary poisoning( my concern because my cat eats dead things)

[Bluey]

A friend put a plastic bucket in his barn, with a wire across the top and an old spray can threaded thru it lengthwise, so it rolls on it.
He smeared peanut butter on the middle of the can, added some water to the bottom of the bucket, two pieces of wood as ramps to the top, where mice can reach for the peanut butter and the can roll and they fall inside.

He has caught over 100 mice in the past few weeks.