Hunting Rats?

[Stone Sheep Steve]

ive got a small cat but she loves to kill vermine...She eats them so I have asked my neighbours to not use poison...mostly she will only leave the stomach, some or all of the tail, and usually a foot or 2...If disturbed she generally will leave it and not come back...I have a pic of a dead rat 17 inches nose to tail that she started eating but didn't finish...

Luckily my cats don’t eat them. They toss them around and play with them...usually at the end of the driveway. Something usually grabs them after a day.
I have a theory that the one cat has a deal with the local yote patrol. Cats leaves the rats for the yotes and they don’t eat the cats!

SSS

[alpinedust]

Well, more like trapping them... Seems we are getting more and more rats in BC, Kamloops specifically. We've had them in our garden and now the wife thinks there's one in the house. I've never had any issues getting mice, whether the old wooden traps or the bucket with popcan, but neither of these seem to have worked for the rats outside either at my place or my dads place. I have 2 dogs that love catching and killing them but the rats give them the slip too. Anyways, cause of the dogs and what not I'd prefer not to use poison and if I use any "open" traps I will need to be careful where I place them not to catch a nosy dog or have them find a dead rat to eat should it actually catch something.

Anyone have any luck trapping/killing them? Any tips/suggestions on traps or bait that actually work for rats? I'm not opposed to a live trap and dispatching them myself if it saves the dogs nose/toes or keeps them from eating them or if the work better than the killing traps.

What type of dogs?

[TUGGER]

Have a look at the automatic trap Have one I use it for squirrels it is supposed to work for rats too

[russm86]

Hi Russ, Love to contribute on the trapping bit, but had the most success with a Mother/Son Maine Coon's team that cleaned up my 100+ year old barn full in less than a month. When we moved in the barn was full of all sorts of vermin mostly rats. We tried every kind of trap in the book and eventually followed our farmer neighbors advice. Maine Coon's are killing machines - especially when competing lol, also they grow big winter coats and can manage themselves outside for some temperature. But alas your dogs

Yea, unfortunately our dogs are in fact hounds (treeing walker and bluetick) and aren't overly fond of cats... haha

[russm86]

What type of dogs?

Coon hounds. 1 treeing walker and 1 bluetick. The treeing walker is especially good at catching them and quicker than the bluetick but the dogs will team up on them. They got a whole family of 5 or 6 pack rats up at our property out of town over 2 days. Have caught a few chipmunks even, which I thought would be too quick for the dogs.

[russm86]

I've tried peanut butter on the victor traps and bucket traps with no success on the rats either inside or outside, plenty of mice outside though. I've heard nutella is suppsed to work pretty well so might try that and some of the tomcat attractant/bait next with a couple different trap styles.

[ActionJackson017]

I've been battling rodents in my garage since fall. Unfortunately my garage is also my pantry... and once rodents are in and know there's a food source they are relentless - I've killed about 20 so far this year but now am no longer getting them inside as I've sealed off their usual ways in, so I'm picking them off outside the garage. I think I've finally gotten the upper hand after spending about $500 on various deterrents. I feed the crow gods with them when I catch them, they're gone within an hour or two as our neighborhood has come resident crows.

For mice, I would HIGHLY recommend the following traps over the standard Victors: https://www.homehardware.ca/en/2-pac...age#ccode=8183

They are far more sensitive. The mice were licking the bait off the Victors and not triggering the traps, whereas these bad boys have a hair trigger seemingly. They're also very easy to bait and set up and less dangerous on your own fingers lol. In terms of bait, I'm alternating between standard peanut butter, and peanut butter with a small chunk of ham. Had a friend recommend ham as an attractant, and it's worked well too.

[alpinedust]

Hi Russ, Love to contribute on the trapping bit, but had the most success with a Mother/Son Maine Coon's team that cleaned up my 100+ year old barn full in less than a month. When we moved in the barn was full of all sorts of vermin mostly rats. We tried every kind of trap in the book and eventually followed our farmer neighbors advice. Maine Coon's are killing machines - especially when competing lol, also they grow big winter coats and can manage themselves outside for some temperature. But alas your dogs

Are these a common breed? Is there a source for finding reliable breeder? How much more effective would these be vs a normal tabby cat?

Coon hounds. 1 treeing walker and 1 bluetick. The treeing walker is especially good at catching them and quicker than the bluetick but the dogs will team up on them. They got a whole family of 5 or 6 pack rats up at our property out of town over 2 days. Have caught a few chipmunks even, which I thought would be too quick for the dogs.

Wow, I would have thought they would be too big to catch rats. I was thinking you'd have a rat or fox terrier.

[Linksman313]

Are these a common breed? Is there a source for finding reliable breeder? How much more effective would these be vs a normal tabby cat?

Hey Alpine, i would visit your local pet store and inquire first before Googling a breeder. We were immediately put in contact (by pet store employee) with a farm/rancher out Rock Creek way and had our pair within a week (yes we took them for shots and made sure they were spayed/neutered before entering property). i can say that we were very lucky to get the two as fast as we did. I did run across an article that stated "reports of the Maine Coons demise are greatly exaggerated" lol, in speaking with other cat owners in grocery stores or the bye and bye i found that approx 60% of the folks i ran into owned or had owned Maine Coons in their lives. I could not tell you their effectiveness vs regular tabby (Google might) but i have been nothing but impressed with the breed from personality, energy, to sheer violence and aggression and when on the hunt. If you forget or are late on a feed, they will feed themselves but you will know about it, great family pet as well.
Hope this helps
P.S. we deal with Norwegian Rats here in the Boundary which can get quite large in size (tails alone up to 20cm) and they are no match for the big pawed full bodied Maine Coon. My two devour about half the rat then leave the rest of the remains on the floor where my chair sits in the shop, as a present of course

[alpinedust]

Hey Alpine, i would visit your local pet store and inquire first before Googling a breeder. We were immediately put in contact (by pet store employee) with a farm/rancher out Rock Creek way and had our pair within a week (yes we took them for shots and made sure they were spayed/neutered before entering property). i can say that we were very lucky to get the two as fast as we did. I did run across an article that stated "reports of the Maine Coons demise are greatly exaggerated" lol, in speaking with other cat owners in grocery stores or the bye and bye i found that approx 60% of the folks i ran into owned or had owned Maine Coons in their lives. I could not tell you their effectiveness vs regular tabby (Google might) but i have been nothing but impressed with the breed from personality, energy, to sheer violence and aggression and when on the hunt. If you forget or are late on a feed, they will feed themselves but you will know about it, great family pet as well.
Hope this helps
P.S. we deal with Norwegian Rats here in the Boundary which can get quite large in size (tails alone up to 20cm) and they are no match for the big pawed full bodied Maine Coon. My two devour about half the rat then leave the rest of the remains on the floor where my chair sits in the shop, as a present of course

Wow they sound like true hunters. I definitely agree that asking around would be better than googling for breeders. Thanks for all the info!