Jump to content

Rats/Mice No Play the Game


Dbeasy

Recommended Posts

I have mice and/or rats underneath a shed. I put out a trap next to the entrance but the main hombre just ignores it on the way in and out of the nest (I have a camera on the entrance). Any ideas how to destroy these little suckers?

 

As an entertaining side note, a field cat has come by the hole in the middle of the night twice to assassinate them but so far no luck. That cat is bad ass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

 

I have mice and/or rats underneath a shed. I put out a trap next to the entrance but the main hombre just ignores it on the way in and out of the nest (I have a camera on the entrance). Any ideas how to destroy these little suckers?

 

As an entertaining side note, a field cat has come by the hole in the middle of the night twice to assassinate them but so far no luck. That cat is bad ass.

 

Can you not tell if it's rats or mice? That would be step #1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rats/mice don't just ignore bait unless you've recently caught others in the same spot (they allegedly can remember that kind of thing). If changing to a different kind of bait doesn't work, use a couple boards to create a tunnel out of their entrance and put the trap directly outside of the tunnel so they have no option other than crossing it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome suggestions. I did confirm they are rats and there are at least two. That made me realize they were getting ready to fornicate in my shed domain, leaving me a bigger problem.

 

So, this afternoon I went into full attack mode and tore down the shed and flipped up the flooring. Scared out a big ass rat, and found an extensive rat den. I still don’t understand how these things were too smart to go after the peanut butter on the trap but they’ve got nowhere to screw now.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rats are really difficult to kill. Once they know someone is trying to murder them, they wise up and they become really cautious around bait. There are traps for them but cats are probably one of the more effective things you can get.

There's a guy on YouTube who tests lots of different rat and mice traps and he has a lot of success with the rolling log style traps when it comes to mice. These kinds of traps are fairly humane and cheap to build. Glue traps are just cruel and they can get out of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ve never had trouble killing mice with snap traps baited with marshmallows

Rats are a lot smarter it seems. My Dads spent months trying to get a rat that gets into my sisters attic. Got one with a snap trap baited with bacon but after that the other rats(s) won’t go near any of his traps no matter what the bait.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We had  costco Ritz crackers box with opened top and a mouse got into it.  After we threw out the box my wife found some droppings and vacuumed them up but later went online and learned that you shouldn't do that because of spread of disease. 

So the wife who overreacts to everything anyway is now convinced that she has hauntavirus and she has 1 to 6 weeks before it hits. She's calling exterminator and her doctor tomorrow. She even threw out the dust buster. I don't argue but advise she is not gonna get anything. I don't try to convince her as she is playing mind games with herself. I live in phoenix.  Deer mice and hauntavirus aren't exactly a thing here. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

What’s the best air rifle and scope?

Now that's a loaded question.  You may be tempted to get a break barrel Gamo or Chinese (Ruger, Benjamin, etc) rifle at Wally World that's 1100 fps!!!!11!!1 or something ridiculous.

You don't need 1100 fps to kill rats and mice at short range.  Also, spring piston airguns like that are inaccurate, hard to shoot, and tear the shit out of even quality scopes because of their reverse recoil (they actually recoil forward).

It's a bit of a pain in the ass, but a pump-up, pneumatic Daisy 880 or 901 is a better choice.  Not as powerful, but sufficient, accurate enough, and easy to shoot and will work with any rimfire type scope you want to put on it.  Four pumps should do it inside 20 yards.  Might even get by with iron sights.

Currently, those two Daisys get better reviews than the similar Crosmans, although historically the Crosmans were better built.  I have a recent production Daisy target rifle with basically the same internals that will stack pellets at 10m, literally one hole in the right hands.

When you get hold of the Daisys, your first thought may be "toy," but don't kid yourself, they're for real.  Daisy did a remarkable job making quite decent airguns as cheaply as possible.

If you want to go heirloom, look for a Benjamin 397, but you may have to clean barrel paint out of the muzzle before it shoots straight.

Edited by TwiceHorn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
10 hours ago, Rougarou said:

Set a rat trap and killed either a mouse or a baby rat. Only one of the traps or glue strips had one so wonder what’s going on. Not hearing the scratching that started yesterday either.

Nothing on night two; and haven’t heard any scratching. Hired a roofer to repair a small hole in the siding near the edge of the roof we noticed a critter of some sort had gnawed (our backyard backs into a green belt and tons of wildlife abound) and so I’m hoping that fixes the issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...