Rats!

[ampersat]

Yes, rats. I've got a nest of rats living under the big shed in my back yard. The worst part is that the dog run is right alongside the shed. My biggest concern is that in the summertime, once flea season gets underway, diseases being carried by the rats will make their way to my dogs via the fleas.

I could shoot the rats with a pellet gun or something else, but that would do little to ensure that I've killed the entire colony. So I'm thinking poison would be the way to go on this. However, I'm concerned that a rat, delirious from the poison, would wander into the dog run and be attacked by the dogs, who would view it as some sort of drunken chew toy.

Any advice to offer in my efforts at extermination?

[OceanBlue]

Poison them, then line the edges of the shed with sticky paper. If they try to come out, they'll stick and not make it to the dogs. But seriously, I don't think a sick animal would head toward a predator, but rather the opposite direction. If you're still concerned about it, you could get those "one-way" type of traps. Put the poison in, the rat goes in, eats and can't get back out.

[MacEFL]

A couple of years ago my wife got chickens so we got rats! I mean a lot of rats. The coop is ten feet away from our dog run. We bought rat poison from a feed store and put it in the holes and in their travel lanes. Within a few days no rats at all though it stunk around the coop. They drag the sticks of poison into their dens and share it with the colony. I do not think it will be enough to hurt your dog at all if he were to eat a rat that has been poisoned but I am pretty sure vitamin b-12 is the antidote if he does get sick. If they come back to my place you can bet they are going to get the poison sticks!

Put your dog somewhere safe and seal around the shed. Then toss a "Gopher Gasser" or two under the shed. No more rats :smile: Make sure you don't breathe the smoke or no more ampersat :depressed:
Once the smoke clears you can put your dog back and it will be safe. I've done this with rodents and skunks in the past with excellent results.

[Big Dog]

Be carefull with the posion. There is plenty in one of those packs to take out your dog. I think that I would go with trapping them or the gopher gas.

Big Dog

[ampersat]

I like the gopher gas idea. It doesn't work so great on moles but I can see how it would work well on a colony of rats. I'll give it a shot this weekend and report back.

[GOT2FISH]

The only problem with the poison is if your dogs get one of them. This will sound strange but you might want to give it a try. If you have a flood light near the rats change the bulb to a red one set out a plate of peanut butter get yourself a high power pellet gun and have an evening of target practice. I had the same problem in San Jose and a neigbor freind of mine told me about this and it worked.Didnt have to worry about my daughter playing in the back yard any more.

[GutZ]

Ampersat has Amplerats.

[ampersat]

I thought about going the BB gun route but I want to make sure I kill the whole colony, not just some of them. I'm going to try the gopher gas first and move to more extreme measures if warranted.

So how long does it take for the stench of rotting rat carcasses to go away?

[Hoosier Daddy]

Amperrats!!!

How about some Amper-Traps??

Maybe you can box them in with some lumber?

[Silver Hilton]

They can stink for quite a while. If I was you, I'd start by trapping as many as I could, then shoot as many as I could, then poison the ones that are left. They appear to learn about thee things fairly quickly, so with any of the methods, you get a bunch, and then they seem to catch on. Makes it a bit challenging.

[Cool Texan]

Just get a bunch of cats to take care of the rats. Then when the rats are gone, get a bunch of snakes to take care of the cats. Then when the cats are gone, get a bunch of eagles to take care of the snakes. Then when the snakes are gone, get a shotgun and shoot the eagles, then you'll just have a pile of dead eagles, which worst case, will cause you to have a slight rat problem.

Wait, what was the question?!?

[img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img]

Too many variables on the stink, number of rats, temperature, humidity,...
We could smell the skunks for about 2 weeks.

[HeavyMetal BankFisherman]

When I was a kid and lived by Alpenrose dairy there were all kinds of rats. We had a shed in the backyard that the rats decided to live under. My father stuck a hose down one of the holes and turned on the water. Within seconds what seemed like hundreds of rats came scurrying out the other side. My brother and I had quite a job on our hands chasing them down with a shovel and flattening them on the spot. It was kind of disgusting but after that my father gased the holes a few times and then sealed everything up real good.

I think he wanted to flush them out with water so that they would not be rotting under the shed. This may or may not work for you. It could also make your neighbors mad because you won't be able to get all the rats with a shovel and they will most likely setup house next door.

[garyk]

A key to all of this is depriving the rats of their food source. Are your dogs not finishing their food? Is there another source, maybe an open compost bin?

If the food source - the attractant - remains, you'll have an un-ending problem.

[Flatfish]

Trap, poison, squash, ...just kill them. Whatever it takes.

Rodents all reproduce at a rather rapid rate. If they get a good start on you, you will have your hands full.

As far as the pets becoming collateral damage, it depends on the pesticide used. Many over the counter killers actually cause the target organism to bleed to death internally( same thing stroke victims get at the hospital, I am told) as the pesticide is actually an anticoagulant.

There are many ways to kill these animals. Just look into how much poison is required per pound of animal. If there are pets around, be very careful of the potent stuff( which is usually not available to you over the counter, but thru a professional. Which is not the first route I would advise you to take. But it should be an option later if things are bigger than you realize.) as damage to pets and such is something we want to avoid.

If things get out of hand, PM me and I may be able to send you in a direction.

Just look at it like a safari between now and springer season. Except instead of elephants and loins, you get rodents. And instead of sexy double barrel rifles, you get peanut butter on a trap. :smile:

Good Luck.

Mark and the dog.

[Grantspastor]

With the Gopher gas they pretty much die in their tracks. With poison it takes a while and gives them time to find a nice completely innaccesable (to you) place to crawl into and then smell to high heavens, for who knows how long... until you find it and tear the wall apart to extract them. (Don't ask me how I know all this)

[ 03-04-2004, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: Grantspastor ]

[fortywinks]

I have had rats from time to time in my barn. I always have poison out. I use cubes that you can nail to the wall so they don't easily carry it away right off and I can tell if its just the normal field mice using it or if there are rats around. Then I can look around closer to confirm the presence of rats. It is usually just one or two to start with and as soon as I know there are rats I will set out a trap or two. Bait with Peanut Butter, grain, a glob of rice, whatever, slide it up perpendicular to the wall in the area they frequent and presto--dead rat. Get them early or you will have a problem. Then put out poison, like I say I don't want it carried out because other critters might get into it, but I have stations that are out of the way where dogs, cats or other critters you might have can't get to and I try to remember to check them often. You can go for months sometimes with nothing but some mouse activity, and then all of a sudden the bait starts disappearing, or you can see something a lot bigger than a mouse has been gnawing on it. In my opinion it is better to trap them than poison them because they will stink if you can't locate the carcas. Good luck.

If all else fails, call a New York, New York rat exterminator and ask him for advice.

[Dipnet]

I have been known to blow away a rat or 2 and a gopher in my backyard with a .410 shotgun. In town, no less! Of course, that was quite a few years ago when that sort of thing wasn't frowned upon as it is now!! Sure did the job!!! Good luck with exterminating yours!!!

Dipnet :grin:

[AuntyM]

You have the wrong kind of dogs. You need a couple of Jack Russells is all. The will take care of those rats. :grin:

[fortywinks]

BOE

Did you tell him to check this out?

[Barviewrocks]

One more comment - gopher gas works well on gophers if you give it an assist spreading out in the tunnels. I have used a leaf blower set on low to blow the gas throughout the tunnels. One shot usually does it for the year.

[Bait O' Eggs]

Forty winks said

I have had rats from time to time in my barn.....

..... Bait with Peanut Butter, grain, a glob of rice, whatever

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">next time Rich is home why dont you just make him a sandwich and talk to him about the problem

[Ryan Pultz]

All you need is juice fruit gum they eat it and they love it and well it stops them little buggers up I'm talking incurable constipation. No poison to worry about. Still got to worry about the stink

[kayakfisher]

Call a good exterminator...

It isn't all that expensive for the time and trouble it saves you, they have all the things needed to do it right the first time. Gum might work (I have no real experience with that) but there is a good possibility that gum won't take care of all of them...and rodents learn from experience to avoid things that made them sick once.

The newer, and very effective rat poisons are extremely potent anticoagulants...it only takes one exposure to the stuff to do the job on a rat, and therefore there is no learning how to avoid it.

To protect your dog, and small children for that matter, it is important that this poison is contained in a trap that only a rodent can get into, and the bait is large enough, and solid, so that it cannot be taken out of the trap by any means other than opening the trap. This material works very very well...too well if a small child gets into it, and the dog/cat/childproof systems are well worth the cost of the professional's fee imho. There is a lot to be said for not having to worry about it...and not having to take your dog to the veterinarian if things go astray.

There is some risk to a dog or cat if the pet eats a rat that is poisoned. The poison is so potent that there have been cases of pets getting ill from the amount of poison in the rat if the rat is consumed...ie you should try to dispose of the dead rats if possible. I had two large brown rats a few years ago...I kept my dog from free roaming the yard for a week or two and then let my dog find the dead things while on a leash so I could dispose of them.

As previously stated, if you have a reason for the rats being there, get rid of it...ie a food source? Open compost bins with kitchen food waste (ie cantelope seeds), open dog food bowls or containers left open with food all the time, etc. (The metal dog food holders with flip up lids work pretty well if you like to have food for the dog outside all the time...in my experience.)

If you get rid of the attractant, the extermination will be easy. The expense of a good exterminator isn't all that bad, in relation to the effectiveness of their traps/bait systems, and the added safety of the traps they use.

M.

[Carver_OR]

I killed a dozen rats a couple years ago under the bird feeders. I live in the country so I used the 22, it was like hunting any wild animal, fun time.

A food source is the reason the rats are there, get rid of the food and the rats will leave. I tried the skicky stuff but the rats where to big and could pull out of it. The shooting was fun and entertaining. I still feed the birds but I think the word is out in the rat world that dinner at my place isnt always fun....bang.

Pat

[ampersat]

So I stuck a trap out next to the shed, away from the dog run, baited with peanut butter. No luck yet. They don't seem interested in it. I did see a little ******* dart out once or twice for the black sunflower seeds that the birds are knocking out of the bird feeder. That's what got my attention to begin with.

Sometimes the dogs don't finish their dog food and I'm sure that's a food source for them as well. But it seems they prefer the bird food.

I may go straight for the gopher gas. The shed is well away from the house so the stench wouldn't be that big a deal for me.

[Mr. Carp]

Just get some dynamite and blow the shed up. You can build a new one and then the rats will be gone. Might be cool to watch. [img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img]

[Steel Reign]

Well now, would you believe that I found a site called Ratkill.com? It mostly deals with ratshoots and exploits of shooters. Still a hoot to check out.

[straightweave]

Get a cat. Leave it outside and put it's food bowl by where the rats live. End of story.

If that isn't an option, traps and peanut butter always work. It may take a week, but they just cannot resist those goober peas.

[James in Idaho]

Or use a highway flare down the hole, and shovel it up closed. No air to breath means dead rats quick. That's how some animal damage control guys that I know take care of anything in a den. Works and doesn't leave any poison around.

Oh yead, be careful and don't burn down the shed!!! That would take time away from your driftboat project, which, if anything like mine, is a black hole of time.

[ 03-09-2004, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: James in Idaho ]