Something has been digging between stalls and my trail cam caught a rat.
How does one deal with this?
I have a barn cat, but he’s toothless. My dog does lions, not rats (She’s a Ridgeback.)
Rat traps?
We take a 5 gallon bucket, Home Depot sells orange ones, drill two small holes close to the top, run a wire thru them with a soda pop bottle or can speared lengthwise thru it, add a little peanut butter to that, put just enough water in there so nothing can’t stand up, but has to swim, but not so much they can climb out and one or two sticks by the wire, so the mice and rats can climb up there and, reaching for the peanut butter, fall into the bucket.
With that trap, you don’t kill other, like with poison.
Here are some pictures, warning, don’t look if squeamish:
We had a horrible, nightmarish invasion of brown rats two summers ago, the ran in hordes across highways and we were catching tens of them a night in those buckets, gruesome.
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When I moved into my barn, it was empty for a while and taken over by rats… it was horrible. We even had them in the house for a while. I do admit I hired a pest control company who set up rat traps, and then a feral cat moved in as well (that was the biggest blessing in my life) and the cat together with the company eliminated the rats completely. I think the rat presented about 5 rats every morning to us for a while. I could probably quit the company now but I am still scared that the rats might come back… Because right now its paradise.
I hate to say it but when I bought my farm and had to deal with rats I ultimately had to go to rat poison. I still feel awful about it because it’s a terrible way to die…but they had eaten through the strings of about 30 bales of hay I had to move and made nests. I ended up having to convert a storage room into storage for loose hay for the winter…I was not happy.
I put the poison underneath the pallets in my hay shed. I didn’t have any cats at the time, but wanted it to be pretty hard for other random animals to get to except the rats.
Once they were killed, I have never had a problem again. Not sure if I am just lucky or just manage feed, etc. better than the previous owners.
Rat Snakes. I have two that do great work, occasionally they surprise me with their appearance that gives me the snake scare moment until I realize it’s just the resident barn snakes.
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Ditto the home-made rat trap via bucket. Poison doesn’t just kill the rodents. Raptors (especially owls) who eat the dead rats are then killed secondary to ingesting the poison.
After the traps, see if there’s a local group of Feral/Barn Cats for Adoption. If so, get 2 good males and let them have at it.
Lastly, if you can, look into providing an Owl Box. Great Horned, Barn Owls, Screech Owls and Saw-Whet Owls will use them for nesting purposes. I know that one pair of barn owls, having 2 clutches in a breeding season, can consume 2,000 to 3,000 rodents.
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Everyone here that has cats still has a mouse and rat problem.
Cats can only do so much and for us, we can’t have any cats, they don’t last one night, our resident bobcats are very territorial and deadly.
Taking care to not let rodent numbers get out of hand, keeping any food where they can’t get to, traps and in dire straits, poison until you get the problem under control, that seems to be here some of the more effective ways to handle rat infestations.
We bought poison, but the bucket traps worked so well, we never had to use it, we didn’t want to use it, but would have if nothing else worked to slow the rats down.
I would go get another cat, if you could.
Me, I have SUCKER on my forehead, and had rats as a kid anyway - I can’t bring myself to poison or drown them. Both are awful, awful ways to go - rats hate water more than cats do, and they’re such smart, intelligent animals that I hate to see their end like that.
That and, if poisoned, rats don’t usually just keel over and die near the trap. They will go a long way before they die, and something else will pick them up and eat them - fox especially… this time of year would be a bad time to poison IMHO as lots of animals are scavenging for their newborns - hawks, fox, coyotes, badgers…
The only conscientious way I could employ something to kill them is if it was through a snake or cat. We had a feral cat adoptee here for a while, he did a good job of keeping the rats out of the barn, but they just set shop up elsewhere. Hawks, snakes, and owls do a decent job here of keeping the rat population from getting disproportionately out of hand.
You probably already know this, but keep everything off the ground, limit spilled grain, keep food in airtight bins, etc.
There are some good things about having a rat population - they distribute seeds very well, they are good at ground-insect pest control, they LOVE ticks, and they do a good job of eating larvae in the manure.
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I will second Chocomare on the owls. I used to have a horrible rat problem until my barn owls moved in. They keep the rats under control plus they are very entertaining to watch and listen. The owlets are adorable. Rat snakes are a good option too. Get a dachshund or terrier to go with your Rhodie.
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Here 
(I’m really enjoying having this trail cam!)
He’s been in an empty stall that currently being used as storage. No sign of infiltration into the feed room. We’ll clean out the storage stall this weekend and go through those boxes. It’s mostly horse blankets…hopefully they’ve not been trashed. Some shipping boots that were packed definitely ARE trashed. Sigh.
I would LOVE to have another cat, but it’s really a no go. And besides, an additional cat would still get locked up at night with Kelso Kat. We have too many coyotes too close to leave the kitties out at night.
We do have several birds of prey around. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are owls nearby. How would I know?
I’m not entirely opposed to a snake. How do I talk one into moving in?
Poison would be my absolute last resort. I really don’t want secondary poisoning of anything. Are there ANY poisons that are safe??
Beowulf, I hear you about how smart they are. I also had rats as pets as a kid, and did fancy mice for several years as an adult. But this guy has got to go…I definitely don’t want to get to a point where he and his family ARE in the feedroom, or destroying bales in the loft. Any thoughts on the electric zapper type rat traps? At least they die quickly that way?
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Get a jack Russell 
but I would try a big ol rat trap.
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Borrow some JRTs for a few nights and lock them in the barn?
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Barn Owls are little guys. Dogs are bigger than a barnie, so there’s no threat there.
A Great Horned or a Barred owl, along with a hawk, etc., will take a little dog.
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oh my, he is plump and adorable…
maybe send him an eviction notice?
I lived in an old, old farm house in upstate NY, bordering a huge llama farm, for about a year. Our house did not have rats but the barns adjacent did. Landowner used to ball up cotton balls full of peppermint oil extract and stick them in a toilet paper tube and stuff them into the holes. She swore it works. Maybe something to consider before poison.
The zapper thing, I think one would fall for it and the rest would learn from his mistakes.
UGH, I feel your pain. I tried all of the above suggestions with no or very little success. My house and barn are surrounded by trees and corn fields, we have owls that don’t do their jobs, at least at the barn they don’t, fox, coyotes and although i have not seen them I’m positive we have snakes.
Finally, after a year of trying all the traps, Mr. SPF couldn’t take it anymore and dug a few inches down and out from the foundation of the barn and filled it in with cement. We then took up the mats and stone in the stalls did the cement treatment all the way around the inside walls of the stalls, making sure we got cement under the walls. We had a couple of breeches of the perimeter, to those we finally used poison, we put poison in the holes and then sealed them back up with cement. Sorry, at this point no mercy and the poison and the bodies are buried in the cement.
Finally appear rat free as far as digging under walls and mats go, I realize they can still wander in but they are discouraged from making it a home.
Get a Rat Zapper, rats are electrocuted inside a plastic trap. Very easy to use and more humane than other methods. Amazon has them.
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If you get the peppermint oil, make sure it’s the concentrated, pure version. Some stores sell a diluted, imitation peppermint oil, and it’s useless.
Mothballs also help.
They are pure nafta and will eventually evaporate, but mice sure don’t like them, neither do snakes, keeps both away, until the balls are gone.
They are not poison anything eats, so don’t kill any other.
They work also in places skunks try to make themselves at home.
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Well, I caught a deer mouse in my bucket trap (sorry, beowulf 
) but no rat. More evidence of our friend on the cam last night. Will get the storage stall cleaned out tomorrow, and I realized that I’ve probably been making a mistake by leaving that stall locked–Kelso the Kat never gets in there. So have given him open privileges. He’s killed mice and voles and moles in MN, even without teeth…unsure if he could take a rat, but he’s a decent sized dude and is at least a deterrent.
Will give it a couple days and then up the ante with one of those zapper traps?
I bet that’s a she-rat. burrowing and gathering nesting material.
I use good old fashion rat traps.
I put one in a clear 16 qt Sterilite tub and bait with a little bit of cheese or peanut butter. The tub has a nice hole/door big enough to let the rat in but keep the cats out it’s clear so I can see if it caught anything… The trap is stuck to the bottom of the tub with double stick tape so it won’t move when it goes off.
http://www.sterilite.com/SelectProdu…=179§ion=7
ETA… I leave the trap baited, but un-set for a night or two. Lets the rat build confidence and loose it’s fear of the trap. Then after a couple nights of the bait being eaten I set the trap.
Rat never knows what happened.
Bodies can be trashed or left out for scavengers or used as bait for something bigger.
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