Drat that Rat! (Not for queasy stomachs.)

We have chickens. Therefore, we have rats! Yeah. The big buggers!

We don't have just any ol' rats. We have smart wood rats. We bought this to humanely catch and release them.

Humane Small Animal Trap

We baited with yummy peanut butter. We tried yummy bacon. We mixed peanut butter and seeds. We sprinkled a light trail to the trap. We did everything we could think of, baited with everything we thought a rat would find yummy, and the rats are way too smart to take the bait.

Then, we tried the rat poison blocks. I'm not keen on them because if your pet gets a hold of them, the Coumadin in the blocks could kill your babies. Now, if you have 15 rats climbing the rafters a few inches from your head when you walk into the coop, this sounds like a pretty good solution, right? Guess again. They wouldn't touch it.

Then, we tried the spring-loaded traps. We caught a few with these traps. This was our best weapon, but it wasn't foolproof. Yeah. They snapped the traps without getting caught and ate the bait. I even attached the bait with dental floss so they couldn't take the bait without snapping the trap. The rats wouldn't touch it so the fire ants ate all of that bait.

When's the best time to catch rats? In the winter when the fire ants aren't so active. Otherwise, you'll lose your bait to the ants by morning.

Sorry for the bad post, but such is the life on the little farmstead.

Take care.