Smart rats

[Ravenseye]

My feral cats are getting old and hard of hearing and don't work as well as they used to. I struggle with rats under an outbuilding near the coop. I finally blocked up the underside of the coop so they can't get in there but the outbuilding had woodchucks and now rats. Most of the ones I catch are in a bucket trap. I shoot some. The cats get one now and then. I use an A24 trap and I use RatX which actually worked pretty well so long as they eat it for a few days in a row. You really have to eliminate the food. My wife loves to feed scratch in the run..that's a problem. She feeds the birds outside the house all year...that's a problem. In what little spare time I have, I need to now block up the outbuilding so they're less inclined to get under it. It's an old, old house so they have plenty of places to go. It's more a matter of making their food source scarce.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

You've got excellent advice here but I thought I'd add that to really kill them, Just One Bite works. If they're good at smelling what's bad for them, this product must not give it away. I would put it directly under the shed, no bait station. And then I'd put a hardware cloth apron perimeter around the shed. It kills them so fast that they wont have the energy to get out by tunneling under the apron while they're dying (your fear of animals eating them.) About that, Not many animals will really consume a dead rat. I know it's a fear that everyone has but I've never seen it happen. I have feral cats and no rat problem but years ago when I did, I had to really knock out the population this way. There are more pinkies than you can imagine, probably under the shed...... Good Luck!

 

[dawg53]

You've got excellent advice here but I thought I'd add that to really kill them, Just One Bite works. If they're good at smelling what's bad for them, this product must not give it away. I would put it directly under the shed, no bait station. And then I'd put a hardware cloth apron perimeter around the shed. It kills them so fast that they wont have the energy to get out by tunneling under the apron while they're dying (your fear of animals eating them.) About that, Not many animals will really consume a dead rat. I know it's a fear that everyone has but I've never seen it happen. I have feral cats and no rat problem but years ago when I did, I had to really knock out the population this way. There are more pinkies than you can imagine, probably under the shed...... Good Luck!

Ditto with the Just One Bite. Rats love it.