Exterminating vermin

[Fisherman99]

Originally Posted by Fisherman99

They are getting in one of my rental apartments...tenants slobby...leaving loose food around...told them they need to contain it which they did. Had to have pest control plug up all entry points and wire up chimney.. Big costly hassle.

Had them pretty bad at mom's house a few years back...they were eating the baitboxes I put out like candy. Also set snap traps on a hutch next to fence which they run on at night to get the rest. Most gone and under control now. The key is to spear a raw almond on metal tine/trigger of snap trap so rat has to work to pull it off. Gets them more often than not.

Got this one last week...from a few perpetually set traps...didn't even get a bite out the almond.

[fluffythewondercat]

Originally Posted by MGS4EVER

But it's poison that is killing the rat. A hawk eats the rat, hawk dies from poison.

I recommend either placing the flashing lights where you've seen evidence of a pack rat, or use the hav-a-heart trap.

Hopefully the owl that "was in residence" didn't die from the poison.

No, the owl's been gone for months. I knew it was here last year because it was eating the doves and leaving piles of gray feathers behind.

The bait boxes were put out two weeks ago.

[fluffythewondercat]

Originally Posted by Diana Holbrook

We had rats come to our barn, for a short time... In that short time, they ate a wiring harness for our tractor that cost $900 to fix. TWICE.

What worries me is that I have a Sprinter that can't be garaged (too tall) so it has to be parked in our driveway. I'm amazed the wiring hasn't been destroyed by now. Getting that fixed would cost a fortune.

Mice and rats are common in barns, because there's always access to food, shelter and bedding. Especially with chickens, food is often left out all the time. We have adapted and changed our chicken feeding to keep rats and mice from getting to it. (longer story I can share if you plan to keep chickens!)

I would love to keep chickens -- or rabbits -- and I think it's actually permitted here in Scottsdale but we get visitors of the bobcat and coyote variety. It would be an ongoing war between us and them.

And most important, we got some cats. Three barn kitties. Now.... problem solved. It's been a year since I've seen any evidence of rats. Here's a picture (below) of our kitties playing ON hubby's tractor, which always wins them bonus points with hubby.

Your barn kitties look very much like a brother/sister pair we had. Especially the tuxedo kitty. My tux kitty was dumb as a stump but I sure miss him and his siblings.