OT: Rat | Page 2 | The Boneyard

OT: Rat

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I have just the Boneyarder for you to meet.

 
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My dad used to put corn out for the pheasants. My job was to take care of the occasional rat it attracted. A few tips:
PB is an ok bait, but raw bacon is better.
Rats are suspicious. Leave trap unset until bait disappears.
Spring traps are ok but should be in a confined space as they are a danger to pets and other wildlife.
Live traps are best. You can release innocents and when you get a rat you get the satisfaction of killing the sucker yourself.
 

nelsonmuntz

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I have never seen a rat near my house (knock on wood), but maybe they are in the area because I can't figure out what all the bobcats, black racers and hawks that live around me eat.
 
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Truth be told an airsoft pellet gun will do the trick just as easy.
Yeah, umm, I'm gonna have to go and disagree with you on that... I shot a large rat with a .22 once and it ran away. I eventually found it dead behind my shed. Cause of death was blood loss, not damage from the shot. Pellet gun??? Go big or go home.
 

ClifSpliffy

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i am definitely not 'anti-chipmunk,' nor 'pro-chipmunk' either, but leaving around a home depot 5 gal with around 40% water in it will provide to you a steady supply of dead chippys, chipmunk question person. garuntee.
as to rats, and with almost, well actually zero, experience from where i live, yet some from urban times, i can tell you that the 'tomcat' green blocks (forget that nonsense plastic trap part) are the nuke weapon equivalent in the varmint wars. grab a couple/tree bags with 16 each from the depot, then sprinkle liberally around the exterior. 20 or 30 should do it to start. check every day to see if they have been gnawed for insight on the traffic locales.
that stuff kills what ail's ya. seems to me that only skunks, from the collection of under porch visitors (mice, squirrels, rabbits, chippys, etc), are smart enough to never nibble on the green death.
they say that they are ending their habit of eating rats, but i don't believe it for one second.
 
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If anyone has any advice on permanently deleting chipmunks jump on in. The mild winter left us with a population explosion and a thousand little holes around my yard .
Castor oil in the holes. Gets on their fur. Cant stand the taste when they attempt to lick it off. Abandon the area as an unsuitable habitat.
 
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Just reading this thread makes my skin crawl, I have a phobia on them. I would rather wrap myself in snakes than deal with rats. My advice is quite simple. Don’t mess around. Open your check book and call the best exterminator you can, and don’t fire them until they bring you the dead body. Other than that I can recommend some good realtors.
 

dennismenace

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Yeah, umm, I'm gonna have to go and disagree with you on that... I shot a large rat with a .22 once and it ran away. I eventually found it dead behind my shed. Cause of death was blood loss, not damage from the shot. Pellet gun??? Go big or go home.
Alternative : .410 shotgun. This is the smallest shotgun and is used for pest control or hunting small game. Wide shot pattern (say #5-#6 shot (these are the small pellets that come out by the dozens at once) makes easier to hit the critter and less chance of a dangerous ricochet which could be a problem with a rifle bullet with other homes in close proximity.
 
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Bats are a close second. I should note, incredibly, that for the first time since we've lived here, in the hour since I made that post a saw a rat scurry into the tall hedges that separate our property from the people next door. I reflexively jumped in the pool and I'm now headed out to buy lighter fluid.
It was a squirrel, BigErn.
 
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only skunks, from the collection of under porch visitors (mice, squirrels, rabbits, chippys, etc), are smart enough to never nibble on the green death.
they say that they are ending their habit of eating rats, but i don't believe it for one second.

I know from experience that squirrels will take rat poison.

Watching "King Rat", I learned thatthat "miniature deer" are a valued delicacy.
 
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If anyone has any advice on permanently deleting chipmunks jump on in. The mild winter left us with a population explosion and a thousand little holes around my yard .

The Death Bucket. I must have fished out 30 this year. Works like a charm. Somedays, as I'm dumping one soaked chipmunk into the woods, I can see another one already climbing the plank.

 

dennismenace

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i am definitely not 'anti-chipmunk,' nor 'pro-chipmunk' either, but leaving around a home depot 5 gal with around 40% water in it will provide to you a steady supply of dead chippys, chipmunk question person. garuntee.
as to rats, and with almost, well actually zero, experience from where i live, yet some from urban times, i can tell you that the 'tomcat' green blocks (forget that nonsense plastic trap part) are the nuke weapon equivalent in the varmint wars. grab a couple/tree bags with 16 each from the depot, then sprinkle liberally around the exterior. 20 or 30 should do it to start. check every day to see if they have been gnawed for insight on the traffic locales.
that stuff kills what ail's ya. seems to me that only skunks, from the collection of under porch visitors (mice, squirrels, rabbits, chippys, etc), are smart enough to never nibble on the green death.
they say that they are ending their habit of eating rats, but i don't believe it for one second.


 
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Lived in our house for 20 years. Don't have rats. But I still have the exterminator set rat traps (poison bait traps) as part of regular maintenance. It may the reason we don't rats.
 
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Last weekend my neighbor told me he saw a rat on our patio. We've had the occasional mouse in the house, but never any issue with big boys. I scoured the patio for droppings and found three, so I wasn't overly concerned. Every entry into the house via gaps around wires and pipes is sealed, pretty much the only way in is when we open the garage.

Yesterday, while perusing the BY on my patio, I saw it. It was running from my neighbor's patio then down into the rail tie retaining wall that separates the properties, then into a garden on my side and finally into a hole in my stone wall next to the driveway that was originally dug out by chipmunks, that's right next to a pile of wood on my driveway.

So I went to Google to figure out what to do. Using that info, I hit every hole I could find with ammonia bleach, went out and bought a couple of traps, and set those yesterday. No bites on the traps last night. Today I dismantled most of the wood pile, got some polyurethane foam and mothballs, stuffed the mothballs into the holes, filled the holes with the spray foam, then covered those with loose pebbles to camoflage the foam. Tomorrow I plan to hit the holes in the retaining wall with cottonballs soaked in eucalyptus oil.

Other than it taking the bait from one of the traps, none of this will actually kill the rat (and I've only seen the one), but should drive him/her away, most likely into my neighbor's yard.

Anyone here ever had a rat problem? If so, how did you deal with it.

Btw, I have one plastic trap with the green poison chunks, and the other is a standard old wooden trap on which I used creamy peanut butter. If chunky is better, please advise ;)

9c4673766a66750b3172e2f7a84f81b6.jpg
 

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