I had a double double the other day on field rats, I had two box traps with two rats in each.

Here is a video of a fun night at a friend's barn that had a rat problem, thermal scope and suppressed .22, lots of fun.

Actually, rats can be pretty smart. They learn real fast.
In my high school days some of us would go to the dump at night which was located outside the city limits and shoot rats with 410s. After dark the place would be alive with rats.

We have a lot of farm cats. I have issues with rats in mostly just one, of the 5 barns barn, that the cats can't get in. I have 3 barns that have pigeons and poultry in them, that are cat tight, but not rat tight. I think there is only rats in the one barn. I frequently get the population low enough that I don't see any rats or signs of them, but there are likely some smart old rats that don't take the poison, that reproduce.

I should hunt them more often.

Keith

my first thought was: that's a terrible way to die.
my second thuoght was: I expect most of the poison products are a rough way to go, so what difference does it make?

I might try that. With pack rats, a problem is they will steal bait block poison and carry them back to their nest. Then after the pack rat is dead, the poinson is out somewhere unknown where other non-target animals will eventually find it. This might be harder for them to steal. They can eat as much as they want, but its hard to carry away. All they could carry away is the oatmeal anyway, they'll lose the plaster. So nothing of concern is reloacted for my dog to find.

The cats on our farm eat the poisoned rats with no apparent adverse reaction. I think most times there is not enough poison in a dead rat to harm anything that eats it.

Keith

For those who have money to burn.....I saw on YouTube a repeating live catch rat trap....think 300.00+....seems to work well......if I had rats I'd buy one and sell them frozen to snake owners....or make bait for coyote and sell.........think name is ulick....the guy originally made a larger version for ferral cats and critters....think he was an older guy from out west

I have found that rotating the poison helps and use bait stations. They can't steal some of the bait with stations. I often wondered what was smarter rats or coyotes.

In Europe......in the1300's fleas on rats caused the death of almost 1/3 to 1/2 of its population at the time.......it spread fast from rats on ships going port to port......the main way to move things back then.

I just got my first ever double on rats with a .22. 3 shots and 4 rats.



Has anyone else been killing some vermin?

Keith

Cool!! Shot 2 mice with a BB pistol the other day, and also caught one that was in our minivan. Shot a chipmunk last week.

Would have to go the bait route most likely. My daughter won't feed any wild mice I kill to her snakes not wanting them to get parasites from them. She raises and sells her own mice to pet stores and for her own use.

Not so much the Rat, as the fleas ON the rat that cause the problems with disease.

are rats really common? I have only seen or heard about rats 2 times personally. On was a huge rat that ran across the path in front of me at Disney, 2nd was at dad's when some undesirable people moved into the block both were decads ago. Never seen one on the farm or anywhere else other than pet stores or snake food

The first wild rat I ever saw was in with the spectacled bears at the Cleveland zoo, when I was around 15. People would throw food to the bears and the rat would run out of a bush, grab the food and run back in.

Keith

The Eastern Wood Rat, (pack rat) is a naturally occurring animal in most of the country.

Have You ever tried "one bite" ??

Just one bite works better than anything else for me

Me too