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Post by hangers on May 8, 2012 16:09:35 GMT -5
RATS! Gotta love 'em. Amazing creatures in their adaptability and ingenuity. And no Daye, it's not going very well with that. We've managed to do in only 6 so far. Every evening it's insane, me trying to check traps in the chicken house and rats running around up and down walls, underfoot, overhead. And I didn't get any.
I hesitate to drive them out of their because I'm afraid they will then invade the houses. Whoever linked me the peppermint oil on Amazon. It came in the mail today! It smells delightful. I'm going to use this in the attic, but not the chicken house.
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Post by Sunshine on May 8, 2012 16:46:47 GMT -5
This may not be practical for you, but a great rat deterrent is snake poo! You might be able to source some from a wildlife park or someone that has a pet snake. Shedded snake skins also work. My last house had a terrible rat problem because it backed onto a creek. They would gallop along the tops of the fences, and one of my grehounds would chase the cheeky sods. One died in the house in the middle of summer after eating bait, and I had to leave the house and get a pest exterminator in. They wore full hazmat masks, and eventually found it under the washing machine. This house has a couple of harmless tree snakes, and I think there is also a harmless carpet snake around here. No ratties en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morelia_spilotaRats are also very partial to optic fibre - the stuff that high speed internet cabling is made from. In an old job I had, we spent a lot of time advising people to stuff the ends of conduit with steel wool to keep them out. I get a bit psycho about the ratties
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Post by hangers on May 8, 2012 20:23:39 GMT -5
Those are some fantastic snakes! The few we have around here only get about 3ft. long. And we don't see many. I'm always thrilled when I see any reptiles, amphibians. The populations seem to be dwindling. Especially frogs.
We have the tiny tree frogs, but haven't seen a leopard frog in years. And this area used to be loaded with them. They would have a mass migration or something at a certain time of year. I remember I had to drive home one night and the road was slick with them. I felt terrible, tried to avoid as many as possible, but not easy.
Oh yeah, I wonder who has snake poop around here. And what on earth would the rats want with fiber optic cable? Yes, I'm concerned about using poison for many reasons. And one of them is if they die in a wall. We've had tiny mice kick off in the wall and it is so nauseating and hangs on for so long! And seems to cling to stuff like clothes, but that may just be in my head.
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Post by sidestep on May 8, 2012 21:41:15 GMT -5
Yes, I have also seen harmless black snakes around here & am glad to see them in the hope they are catching ratties & not just lizards! (I don't mind the lizards--they are very prevalent & very good bug catchers!)
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Post by wynken on May 9, 2012 0:16:01 GMT -5
peppermint oil seemed to help evacuate kitchen mice. 1 year I had a rat inside and sprinkled black pepper abundantantly around where I'd seen them. The pepper - like the peppermint- really annoyed me but at least said rat was no longer in the house after I found it outside in 1/2 bin of water. (It was a rainy year.) My rational for the pepper was that a lot of animals like rodents, and even cockroaches - like to keep themselves clean and I figured it would annoy them at least. Like others here I was reluctant to use posion, and it wasn't silly enough to get caught in a trap. Camphor oil is another deterent I've heard of, but that really annoys people too. Agreeing snake poo is an often suggested deterent - it also works to keep possums in ceilings.
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Post by lizzie on May 9, 2012 2:37:30 GMT -5
Rats, squirrels, all sorts of critters will open up wire cables to get at the grease used around the wires. Yummy.
Rats are unable to vomit so they are very cautious about trying new things; that is also why they are used for testing products in laboratories - they cannot throw up what they have been force-fed.
Not all cats will hunt rats - 'ratters' seem to run in families, if the mother cat was good at it she will teach her kittens - but I guess there's a high death rate and only the best hunters survive.
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Post by eagle on May 9, 2012 9:06:04 GMT -5
It's unfortunate that the surrounding environment is so welcoming to the rats. We lived in an area like that before moving here, and it was a constant battle.
And yes, they'll eat through anything! They ate through plastic storage bins to get at the clothing inside in our garage. One that did not die in a trap gnawed at the wooden deck after I covered it up with a clay garden pot & weighted it down to keep the rat contained until it died. (Sorry for the graphic description.) They ate through the gas line under our house. They ate through bird feeder cages, both plastic and metal, in order to get to the sunflower seeds.
They certainly were a huge nuisance.
I don't know why they won't gnaw steel wool. They certainly gnawed on the metal cages that housed the bird seed.
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Post by messyme on May 9, 2012 10:24:46 GMT -5
I had a mouse problem in my old townhouse. I tried putting out humance mouse/rat traps and it did work somewhat, but I only caught maybe one mouse every week for a few weeks, and I knew there were LOTS more.
I didn't want to use poison for some of the above-mentioned reasons; I've heard they eat the poison then crawl away and die in your house somewhere, and I didn't want dead mice everywhere. Also, I had a child. So, although this was a last resort, I bought really strong glue traps -- LOTS of them, like 20-30. I placed them all along walls, in cupboards, etc. with food near them (ex: food in the middle surrounded by many glue traps). That method worked SO well, I caught about 2-3 a day at least, for a long time. Rats that hide in attics, etc. have to come out to eat/drink at some point, and if you place the glue traps everywhere, they can't avoid them. And unlike humane traps, they just have to walk across the glue traps and the traps don't look suspicious at all.
The only problem is that, then you end up with a live rat stuck on a glue trap. According to the instructions, you just throw it out that way, with the live rat still attached! I ended up getting a deep pail of water, picking the traps up with long tongs, looking away and drowning the mice. I know that sounds absolutely horrible but honestly the mice were a health hazard; I couldn't keep food hardly anywhere, there were mouse droppings in the cupboards and every time I cleaned with bleach, they'd get in again and I was having to scrub everything every day.
The first mouse I caught, I actually tried taking it off the glue trap with Goo-Gone and then letting it free in the forest! That didn't actually work; I ended up with a mouse covered in Goo-Gone and I'm sure that's not good for them anyway. I absolutely hated to drown them but it was only a couple of seconds until they were dead, and I'm sure it was a more humane way to die than getting chased and eaten in the wild by a snake or bird or whatever else eats mice.
The glue traps totally saved me. Even when I stopped having mice come around, I kept putting them out for many weeks, just in case. I'm glad I did because I did get a few stragglers after.
Ideally though, you'd have to get professionals to find and block all the ways they're getting in. My old house was really bad for having little holes etc. it seems because I had bats, mice, and ants all get in. (Thankfully, the bats were easy to catch and release outside). If you don't block their entrances, new ones will keep finding their way in.
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Post by messyme on May 9, 2012 10:26:30 GMT -5
p.s. I guess rats are like goats in their eating habits! I saw a goat eat a whole pack of cigarettes once (the paper carton, the foil, and many entire cigarettes)!
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Post by dayeanu on May 9, 2012 11:52:03 GMT -5
If anyone is interested, if you want to release a mouse from a sticky board, pour cooking oil on the board.
I used sticky boards one time. The rat was so big, it pulled itself loose, as I watched in horror. That's when I started shooting them.
I'm told they don't eat steel wool or crumpled up aluminum foil because it cuts the insides of their mouths.
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