Figured I'd share this little experiment with you guys. So ever since we got rid of the feral barn cats we had we've had an influx of rats ,mice ,squirrels chipmunk and so on. The mice are pretty easy to take care of with a decon block hear and there chipmunks seem pretty co tent with staying out of my way and the squirrels.....well small game season starts in a month or so lol. The rats how ever are a different story. Seems they won't come near the poison what so ever almost never see them in the day except a few times when I'm moving stuff around the yard so can't shoot them ( well at least till I can get my night vision on my pcp) so trapping has been my main method of control. Problem is have 6 dogs that like to stick their noses and paws into every dang thing I touch so all my traps have to be covered and even then I have to use somthing that's not going to hurt them too bad when they manage to get caught ( and they always seem to lol). So mainly what I'm stuck with are just cheap wooden rat traps in weseal boxes basically. They where working very well for a good while and cheap too ( I might have $3 in each box with screws wood and the trap ) but after a while seems the rats wised up to them




Not sure if it was they seen too many of their dead freinds in them or what but with my trail cam I was a me to watch a few scurry up to the box look around it and just walk away. Tried using a new box ( and im not one whos big on the whole scent control band wagon either )and trap,same thing, old trap old box same thing different Bait same thing. Well got frustrated and left the box out one night with some bait and the rear door open and guess what just about every one that came by walked right in one way or another and Walked right on out. Reckon the ability to see though to an escape made them feel more safe. I know alot of cage trappers prefer do me door cage traps with wire conibear triggers for fox ,bobcat and beaver trapping for a similar reason so why not rats. Ok so great all but problem is I can't use a 110 or 5x5 for various reasons . One being one of my dogs will eventually get caught ,the second unless I add a pan and play with the trigger I'm going to end up missing smaller rats and mice. I could have went with an RBG 44 round coni and slipped in in a life of PVC pipe ,but I'm not paying close to $15 for a single rat trap. And with a normal rat trap to work properly as a duel direction trap the rat is going to have to come across the pan and hit it instead of climbing over the back side and possi my triggering it early. So with all that being said I come up with this little number.







so far I haven't been able to put a camera on it , keep forgetting to buy new batteries but seems to be working,problem is with the ways it's made other animals can remove you're catch pretty easy so the last few set off their been a nice little puddle of congealed blood ( the kind you get on a good head catch) a seems one of the dogs decided to come remove my rat ( not like I'm doing anything more than tossing them across the fence though ) after each catch. Anyhow figured I'd share see what yall think. Seems over complicated but if I have to deal with them might as well make it interesting and do some wood work lol. Going to try to make one with closed sides and bigger holes to see how that works next.

Use some corrugated plastic over the trigger so the just have to step on it.
Wood pallets with 6 inch face boards cut up are just the right size instead of fence boards

methinks you shoulda kept the cats and got rid of the dogs

You can find tons of info on rat trapping over on the ADC forum. One thing I learned for mice is that many of the ADC guys prefer the mouse traps with the big flat plastic triggers and place the trap butted up to a wall just like you did. The mice travel along the walls and it basically works as a blind set whether or not they go for the bait. So I'd say you're on the right track. Adding a pan trigger like North said might help even more.

I used to trap rats at a local elevator when I was a kid.

Got .35 as a bounty ea. This was back in the late '60's early '70's.

we used a Victor long spring #1.

Set them in run ways partially buried.

You had to keep changing things up. Move them, cover them different, baits and scents. Always something different.

Rats are smart and they learn real fast.

While there was no doubt hundreds if not thousands of rats in the place a set was at best good for 2-3 rats before it would be useless.

I really hate rats.

Many fond memories of rat trapping tho.

Good stuff Wolfdog!!

Nice work, wolfdog 91.

same here Dirty D, I had much better luck with a #1 long set so that pan was level and dog was barely in the notch to fire lightly. Rats can jump and bound over things when running. Fairly easy to funnel them over a trap with pieces of plywood too. Habe the rat go between the jaws not over it.
My best sets were 3 foot lengths of old 4" black corrugated drain pipe with #1s set inside each end and i put those along inside and outside walls of the barns. Rats don't like to run in open very long to avoid predators.
Rats can be mean too. Saw four gang up once on a cat.
When I caught one it was very loud and the others would come try to help it out or defend it. Doubles in m my tubes were common.
Jim

Our barn sees it share of mice and rats. I'm not a fan of cats so they are not an option. I have used poisons in the past but they leave the barn smelling like dead mice/rats shortly after them being deployed. The most effective thing I've found?



I will note that to get a good sized rat down they need to be at least 6 ft in length. I can't say for certain that a 4 or 5 footer can't, just that the rats disappear when you see the lengthier ones laying around.

thanks for sharing ,

I put hardware cloth on one end so they can see through the box.

My Sets were usually between the wall and the sacks of product. The rats followed the walls for the most part.

I know what you mean by mean. When trapped they would usually be fighting, jumping, hoping around trying to get away from you. Then all of a sudden they'd come at you. Trick was to have the hammer ready and judge where they'd be when this happened. Dispatched many a rat with a claw hammer. I hate rats, did I mention that?

Rats where I trapped were leery of new objects. The place I trapped at also hired a professional outfit to trap the rats. They uses those metal box traps. after a couple of days they'd never catch any. If I wanted to put stuff up to guide the rats into my traps I made sure it was stuff laying around. It didn't take much to get them to move a couple of inches to where you wanted.

Make trap box long and narrow. Hole in each end. Trap guarding each hole. Bait dish between them. No bait on trap to distract them. Use a big panned rat trap to give them something to step on

Since you are experimenting, try a 1 1/2 long spring.....and 110 body grip with pan trigger.

Also, I have had a few conversations with a guy in OK City, who makes a rat proof feeder for chickens. He is adamant that once you eliminate food sources for rats, out of necessity, they will move on / disperse. They don't have a choice. Easy to do if they are living on chicken feed......harder to do in some barns. But either way, once their normal food source dries up, they are more likely to accept the poison bait blocks.

Had a pest control guy tell me once he had good luck by moving the colony out away from buildings with a bait station. Maybe 100 yards from where they were hanging out. Fed them there, then gave them time to move out there......then when the bait food consumption was up and running at a good pace, replaced the food source with poison bait blocks......out there. They then died in their tunnels.....out there.

Also, very interesting to see the behavior of barn rats and flying rats (starlings). Once you manage to kill a few, the rest wise up in a hurry.