Oh, Rats!

[plantdude]

Made the mistake of putting a little smelly compost tea in the garden. I don't know if it was rats or some other critter that was attracted to it but they got in the garden and snapped the top off of a tobacco plant and knocked over a sun flower and some basil. On the plus side I caught a large rat in the woodpile last night. Here's hoping it was ninja rat going out for a stroll, I'm probably not that lucky though.
3 rats and 1 mouse down so far... No sounds of ninja rat scratching in the family room wall this morning, fingers crossed
View attachment 31945View attachment 31946

@deluxestogie was correct about the damaged tobacco plant resprouting. pic attached of the damaged plant plus two plants in pots I stripped of leaves over a week ago and haven't watered. Tobacco is a weed

 

[ArizonaDave]

I got one of those "clear" traps for country mice, put a spoonful of freshly cooked rice, and caught one live. Drove it out to the country, and let him go about 3 miles away.

I didn't cook the rice just for him though. Does it matter if it was Jasmine rice? Don't know. Every once in a while I might cook some Jasmine rice if I'm having a dish that goes good with it.

 

[plantdude]

I got one of those "clear" traps for country mice, put a spoonful of freshly cooked rice, and caught one live. Drove it out to the country, and let him go about 3 miles away.

I didn't cook the rice just for him though. Does it matter if it was Jasmine rice? Don't know. Every once in a while I might cook some Jasmine rice if I'm having a dish that goes good with it.

Jasmine is an aromatic rice variety so the extra smell may help. 2-acceto-1-pyrroline is mostly what gives jasmine its distinctive smell - wonder if tobacco can produce that compound, could have some Jasmine baccy

I saw where the little bugger was getting in under the garage door and put some foam insulation in. He just tore it out. He took out more of the wall out today too. I think tomorrow is going to be empty out the garage day and wait for the little rat to show itself.

 

[Oldfella]

Jasmine is an aromatic rice variety so the extra smell may help. 2-acceto-1-pyrroline is mostly what gives jasmine its distinctive smell - wonder if tobacco can produce that compound, could have some Jasmine baccy

I saw where the little bugger was getting in under the garage door and put some foam insulation in. He just tore it out. He took out more of the wall out today too. I think tomorrow is going to be empty out the garage day and wait for the little rat to show itself.

Northwood seeds have Jasmin tobacco seeds. It's an ornamental variete. You could get some and try it. I'm going to grow it next season for the flowers, maybe I will cure some leaf and see what it comes out like. Maybe you could use it to bait your traps.
Old lotsa maybes fella

 

[deluxestogie]

Fox found with impressive shoe collection in Berlin

A Berlin mystery is solved as a fox is found to have many stolen flip flops and sports shoes.

www.bbc.com

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Fox found with impressive shoe collection in Berlin

A Berlin mystery is solved as a fox is found to have many stolen flip flops and sports shoes.

www.bbc.com

Bob

The Imelda Marcos of the fox world

My parents (divorced and living separately) both have issues with coyotes trying to eat and run off with their plastic garden hoses. I was going to say maybe there is something in the plastic the fox likes, but not all of those are plastic shoes. Guess she just likes stinky feet.

 

[Oldfella]

Northwood seeds have Jasmin tobacco seeds. It's an ornamental variete. You could get some and try it. I'm going to grow it next season for the flowers, maybe I will cure some leaf and see what it comes out like. Maybe you could use it to bait your traps.
Old lotsa maybes fella

Found what I was looking for. My spelling was all wrong. Any way here's a pic of the pretty flowers on the JasminE plant. It's copied straight from
the Northwoods seeds catalog.




Oldfella

 

[plantdude]

5 and a half hours with the wife working hard and me getting constantly distracted while cleaning out the garage. Holy chit Batman, no wonder the rats were so happy. If anyone on this forum ever lost anything I think I found it out there in the garage today. After today I'm much more worried about Hanta than corona

I did learn some interesting things today. The garage used to be full of miscellaneous species (stetoda species maybe?) of orb weaver spiders. I always left the spiders alone because they eat the brown recluse. I've seen some brown recluse in the garage and house this past month, I now know why. There were hardly any of the orb weaver spiders in the garage except where the rats couldn't get to them. Apparently the rats have been eating my orb weaver spiders and missing some of the brown recluse. They've thrown my whole garage ecosystem off.
I also learned rats pee and crap a lot more than I realized and are much more destructive than my initial assment. They even made a hole in the mortar between two bricks to get outside.


I think I might take a shovel and a six pack and go hang out in the garage with my little rat friend tonight.

 

[tullius]

5 and a half hours with the wife working hard and me getting constantly distracted while cleaning out the garage. Holy chit Batman, no wonder the rats were so happy. If anyone on this forum ever lost anything I think I found it out there in the garage today. After today I'm much more worried about Hanta than corona

I did learn some interesting things today. The garage used to be full of miscellaneous species (stetoda species maybe?) of orb weaver spiders. I always left the spiders alone because they eat the brown recluse. I've seen some brown recluse in the garage and house this past month, I now know why. There were hardly any of the orb weaver spiders in the garage except where the rats couldn't get to them. Apparently the rats have been eating my orb weaver spiders and missing some of the brown recluse. They've thrown my whole garage ecosystem off.
I also learned rats pee and crap a lot more than I realized and are much more destructive than my initial assment. They even made a hole in the mortar between two bricks to get outside.


I think I might take a shovel and a six pack and go hang out in the garage with my little rat friend tonight.

I wage unrelenting war with no quarter given for decades now against rats and mice after they chewed up many too many wires, blankets, harnesses, spark plug wires and air filters. I hate them.

Mucus tinged glass eyed miniature miscreants, discretely destroying disease carrying vicious vermin, little brown almond pellet laying scratchy trespassers in shop drawers, no good low down drywall and poop eating pests. I hate them.

I've used shovels, rakes, hoes, wrenches, hammers, lumber, eye poppingly effective traps, tractors, skidsteers, mowers, balers, weedwackers, sickles, scythes, rimfires, centerfires, scatterguns, pistols, airguns, arrows, slingshots, fire, smoke, water, gasoline, explosives, cats, dogs, snakes, mink, ferrets, and others to extirpate the malevolent flea infested little (or big) dirt bags.

Never used used poison: killing them personally, violently and visibly is too satisfying.

Did I mention I hate them?

Here's wishing you good hunting

 

[plantdude]

Up till 3:30 last night feeding the mosquitoes in the garage waiting for my little rat friend to show up, no go. I took the advice of one of the forum members and scattered some flower near the holes in the wall and by the hole under the garage door. There were little prints by hole under the garage door so he came in at some point. I couldn't quite make it out but I think it may have written a few nasty words in the flour as well.

 

[Oldfella]

Up till 3:30 last night feeding the mosquitoes in the garage waiting for my little rat friend to show up, no go. I took the advice of one of the forum members and scattered some flower near the holes in the wall and by the hole under the garage door. There were little prints by hole under the garage door so he came in at some point. I couldn't quite make it out but I think it may have written a few nasty words in the flour as well.

I got a fair idea what it said, but I would get a good old growling from Bob if I posted here. I can say that your name came up often.
Oldfella

 

[deluxestogie]

I think it may have written a few nasty words in the flour as well.

Admit it. He left you a manifesto with a lengthy list of non-negotiable demands.

Bob

 

[Ifyougotem]

Up till 3:30 last night feeding the mosquitoes in the garage ...

Why put yourself through all that, 'dude- still think a barrel trap w water might be your best bet, and a passive system working at all hours. (Unless you want it alive to mail to tullius, which he'd probably appreciate). Think about it, if a rat lives to be a year old it's learned to evade all sorts of natural predators of the avian, four-footed and slithering kind, plus all the mechanical traps that you and your neighbors set, and even poisons, evidently. It's a multi-tour war-for-survival veteran. Give em something they haven't trained for. Didn't know they could get through mortar- yikes! Actually, the 5-gal. bucket trap that held the Ninja Packrat just long enough for me to employ blunt force trauma to good effect (it almost got out, and got its claws on the rim a couple of times) was just my mouse bucket, based upon a trap from The American Boy's Handy Book, written by Powell, I believe- the man who founded the Boy Scouts. The original has a bucket w water and a paper covering on top, tied w twine to resemble a drum-head. Then you cut a cross-X in the center, creating a 4-flap "trap-door" which is roughly 1/3 the width of the bucket opening. The bait is suspended w string above the center of the X, at a tantalizing height, and the mouse gets dumped trying to stage a stretch/leap. Worked like a charm, but I found removing the diaphragm (which I made from a regular brown paper grocery bag) tedious while fishing out drowned rodents. I left the bucket unattended w paper off, and found a dead mouse anyway- so switched to a smear of peanut butter inside the bucket, which proved simpler than hanging bait & perfectly effective. They jump in, just like lemmings. A Ninja Rat is different though. Press on, sir, and provide a body count when applicable pls. P.S., the Packrat was larger than a regular Rattus rattus (they got creative there, didn't they), and was immaculately clean and groomed. There was a group, I heard more than one, and after a single abortive trap springing not one of them ever touched another such trap. Also, after I killed the one, the rest cleared out never to return. Surprisingly sophisticated social behavior for rodents.

Ifyougotem

 

[plantdude]

I've had a bucket trap sitting out there for the past 3 or 4 days now - no takers yet. Think it may have been disturbed last night after all the cleaning activity. Probably try again a few hours tonight. I left some strategic cover around with traps placed in them in hopes that I can scare him into them or that he inadvertently hits them.
Over the past three weeks my total score is 4 rats and 1 mouse out of the backyard and garage. I have no idea if all the poison I have out has got any of them. I'm making progress, just not fast enough with ninja rat.

 

[Ifyougotem]

I've had a bucket trap sitting out there for the past 3 or 4 days now - no takers yet. Think it may have been disturbed last night after all the cleaning activity. Probably try again a few hours tonight. I left some strategic cover around with traps placed in them in hopes that I can scare him into them or that he inadvertently hits them.
Over the past three weeks my total score is 4 rats and 1 mouse out of the backyard and garage.

Pretty good start, Plantdude. What areas & trap set-ups/baits accounted for your rat successes? You & another member spoke of using flour to detect tracks. 5-gal buckets are cheap enough- what about a 2nd one in another less-busy area, and both ramps dusted to register visitations? Here's another thing- a rat may be "programmed" or evolutionarily wired to feel safer in non-exposed, confined areas, like a burrow or tunnel. TThey get into the damnedest places by the damnedest means, do they not? Though they may show themselves brazenly sometimes, that doesn't nec mean they'd eat brazenly. Maybe a simple cardboard box enclosure would help. If you don't make an aperature, so the NR has to gnaw a point of ingress, that might disengage some wariness instinct- (or make some smaller scent holes that it has to enlarge.) Another idea- if you can get ahold of some lg-diameter pvc pipe, it might make an effective drown-barrel type trap, set up as a slippery slope. Have you flour dusted your bucket ramp? If it's being visited but no kill, try hanging the bait maybe. No visit, try different bait, generally. Maybe a chunk of fried Spam or bacon floating in a tin like a little boat in a 5-gal bucket 1/3 filled w H20 and a brown paper covering that has a rat-sized x-cut would do the trick. You could ramp it or just situate it next to a natural access point. I've been dealing w moles recently, which could comprise a whole other thread. Your words referring to strategic cover have made me wonder if a pinch-type std mole trap covered in tissue paper (so the NR doesn't feel the metal) inside a pvc pipe) baited w some fry-bait might do the trick.

Regards, Ifyougotem

 

[Ifyougotem]

I'm making progress, just not fast enough with ninja rat.

You'd probably want the bait beyond the mole trap in the pvc pipe, not attached to the trigger lever, and probly cover the lever w tissue paper & string (less smelly than tape) to disguise its mettalic feel.

 

[plantdude]

I wound up setting a second bucket trap up yesterday with a few items that rat likes to crawl around on (like my tool box, which it seems to really like to crap on grrr) rather than a ramp. I also added another type of poison bait and an extra snap trap.
The night before last I stepped out on the screened in back porch and heard a rat scurrying around. I thought it was out on the back porch. After a few seconds I realized he was in the screened porch with me. I went in and got the shovel and flashlight and was just about to give it a good whack when it ran back through the hole it tore in the screen at the bottom of the door. It was a grey colored rat.
Earlier that day I had sealed the garage so nothing could get in or out in hopes they would be more likely to go for the bait or bucket trap. I had seen a large darker colored rat at about 10 pm but it beat me back to its hole. The next morning the turd had made a new hole to the outside by tearing through the wood behind the garage door track. If this keeps up I'm not going to have much of a garage or screened in porch left.

I did notice something interesting though. I had a poison bait bar out on a plate (we're keeping the garage closed 24/7 so I'm not worried about other critters getting in there). Nothing touched it for days. Yesterday I set it directly on the floor and the rat had carried it back to the opening of its hole and had been gnawing on it. I doubt he ate enough to kill him but I thought it was funny he had not touched it all while it was on the plate - it's likely the few that are left are so trap shy they don't even trust plates.

I never dealt with moles as an adult. I killed a few with a shovel when I saw them burrowing or yanking plants under as a kid. My dad usually had luck getting them with regular mole traps. I can't offer much advice for catching those.

 

[deluxestogie]

Time to start working on a short story, before you forget all the details.

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Time to start working on a short story, before you forget all the details.

Bob

I'm not sure I want to remember the details afterwards... This is getting really annoying and expensive - $23 dollars on traps and poison yesterday alone. I've easily spent over $70 so far not to mention some of the junk in the garage we tossed due to rat damage. Plus it's going to cost a little in time and money to fix the wood damage and holes the little bugger made. They are getting almost as expensive as having a regular pet

 

[ArizonaDave]

I’d go with the 12 ga. solution through the wall. Gives good reasons for some home renovation too...

pier

PlantDude, it might be time for this approach, haha!