Every so often one of these little bastards decides to make the barn into a playroom.
Not under my watch.
I baited the trap for 3 days without setting the release to get ol' ratatouille used to it.
Smaht son of a gun wouldn't enter.
There was also Tom Cat blocks placed in the opening to the hide out he/she/they/them created.
Active little fucker on the game cam. Here's a screenshot.
Fast forward to the gif below. This was the evening of the 4th. Not looking too good.
I haven't seen hide nor hair of him and all the "treats" have been left untouched.
Kinda staggering as he wonders off....
Adious muchacho...
Plan B was to smoke him out. But that got kiboshed...
When my brother and I were kids, our favorite pastime was killing rats. Dad would move a hog feeder and the rats would run everywhere. We each had our rat killing club and the ones we didn't get, the dog would. Sometimes we would lay quietly by the corn cribs using a .22 with .22 shorts and shoot rats that were foolish enough to stick their heads out of the ear corn into the tunnel under the crib. Farm kids know entertainment. Now a days I hardly ever see a rat or evidence of a rat here around the farm. Had some under a grain bin fan/heater a couple of years ago so I poured battery acid into the holes and GONE. Suck it PETA.
ReplyDeleteBy far and away my favorite PETA gambit is them going after the inhumane way we exterminate rodents
DeleteEmptying out the corn crib we would swat the rats with shovels towards the waiting dogs that would dispatch said rodent !!!!
DeleteSame here when I was a kid on our upstate New York farm. Good target practice. Fun to boot.
ReplyDeleteA local garden guy said his favorite way to get rid of rats was: 1 cup oatmean+1 cup plaster of Paris powder. Rats eat it, it hardens and kills them, carcass can be eaten by scavengers since there is no poison, just a stone in the stomach/digestive tract.
ReplyDeleteI like it, thanks.
DeleteI heard bubble gum can do similar. Apparently they can't digest it and blocks em up. Never tried it, sounds like a three dollar bill.
DeleteWhere the hell is Ceaser in all this?
ReplyDeleteFiddling?
DeleteI found a nest of rats in a rubber maid shed I used to store pool supplies and life jackets. I backed up my riding mower to the shed, ran a flex pipe into the shed from the muffler and the next morning when they were all cozy in their bed I started that sucker up and let it idle…after my breakfast I went out to check on the progress of my home made gas chamber and found all of the rats were dead, dead,dead!
ReplyDeleteMIx up 50% Jiffy Corn Muffin mix with 50% Baking Soda in a dish and that will take care of him and other while not poisoning any other animal that eat him. Works great in my barn.
ReplyDeleteTried two kinds of traps and three kinds of poisons. All worthless. Got rid of poisons and traps, borrowed a semi feral cat for a few days. Problem solved. Cat owner thinks the cat smell alone did the job. Whatever. No more vermin evidence.
ReplyDeleteFUNNY!!!
ReplyDelete"Haven't seen hide nor hair of him."
ReplyDeleteGive it a few days, you might smell him.
- WDS
“Varmit-Cong”
ReplyDelete😁
Your Plan B photo was for spiders and/or snakes.
ReplyDeleteI was going to say, “Get a big ol’ Rat Snake. He’ll clean your barn right out.” But some people think that cure is worse than the problem.
Deletewent and got a quart of formaldehyde and poured it down the hole. they came out like they were shot out of a gun
ReplyDeleteBarn cats. We turned the tack room in our barn into a cat hotel including a heat lamp. Barely ever saw any rodents of any kind ever after that. Even when the barn was loaded with hay. We always kept 3 cats so they always had company. We got feral cats free of charge from the shelter in town. Another trick is to put a small trough filled with enough water to drown in but no so much they can climb out. Then you wipe a smear of peanut butter in a 12-15" swath about 3 inches from the rim of the trough and above the water line. Then you lean a board or plank long enough that the rodents can use it for a ramp to get to the peanut butter. If you keep a mesh culandar on a stick near to the trough you won't have to put your hands in the water to fish the bodies out. We've taught the ravens that when we whistle a few times there's a dead rat, mouse, chipmunk, ground squirrel near the trough for them to dine on-the carcasses are gone within a couple minutes usually, which means that rotting rodents don't attract coyotes. Cats don't bug chickens, oddly. The feral cats we've had have had almost no interest in humans and don't come anywhere near the house-they're not pets and resent most effort to treat them as such. We keep them fed and watered, but our three cats eat about a cup of dry cat food a week when there's plenty of critters to be had.
ReplyDeleteWe did something similar at camp. Left a small can of grated cheese with the top cut off in the bottom of a galvanized 30 gal trash can with a board running from the counter top to the trash can. Over one winter we dispatched over a dozen mice.
DeleteNow, we use Tom Cat poison blocks over the winter. We do the chipmunks with .22 HP's. It was surprising to me how much bigger the exit hole is in a chipmunks head.
Nemo
I like the trash can trick. Might rig something like that up.
DeleteCO₂ Powered, Full-Auto BB Air Rifle with Red Dot, Black
Deletehttps://www.crosman.com/img/public/product//b/m/bmpwx_02.20201211011110_1.png?w=800&h=800&fit=max
Wal*Mart carries tubs of bacon grease in the cooking oil section.
ReplyDeleteHandling traps while wearing disposable gloves, we slather the trip and the wood under the trip with that bacon grease.
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Our first time, we found several skeletons and fuzz-heads next morning.
Apparently, the relations cannibalized Uncle Fester and Auntie Gangrene.
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Based on the ingredients list, the gunk is adequate lure for vermin, but probably toxic to humans.
Concussion grenades work. I commanded a Marine Rifle Platoon in Viet Nam. Rats would gnaw on the men's fingers as we slept in old bunkers. This was even though we left the rats plenty to gnaw on just outside our perimeter. Finally rigged concussion grenades in the bunkers and the men sat on top to shoot the ones that escaped. We had a ball until a day later when the rats that died in the sandbagged walls began to smell. Think of hundreds of dead rats in extreme heat. "The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray". I picture some old jar heads in a VFW bar still talking about it.
ReplyDeleteunfortunately rats are an Xtremely clever and intelligent adversary. use gloves when handling any type of rat weapon be it trap or poison. however, one the most entertaing things i ever saw was when our past dog "Mugsy" dismantled a woodpile to get one of the biggest rats i ever saw. man that dog was quick.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on rats being smart. A lot of people swear by peanut butter as bait, but a really cautions rat or mouse can just lick it clean. Best bait I've found is chocolate chip cookie dough. Dig out a chocolate chip with a nice chunk of dough. Cram the point of the chip into the hole in the bait holder. The vermin will lick at the dough and if they're good enough to get the the chip they're toast. Have caught several cagey rats this way. The gnaw marks on the chip are very telling.
DeleteOnce the rats and mice are all gone you can make chocolate chip cookies, pour a glass of cold milk, and celebrate your trapping skills.
I've used cheese popcorn, and peanut butter to good effect, when the rodent make me declare war on them. It works pretty good, and stays where you lay it out.
ReplyDelete