How do I get rid of all these rats?

Question

I've had rat problems before and have always had success with the standard wooden traps but this year there are soooooo many rats and they are too smart for the traps. There are really too many to trap, so what do I do now? Poison them? If so, what kind of poison do I use? I don't want to poison the possums or the squirrels or the birds or my dogs. HELP!

Answer 1

Big Gee's advice As a country born boy my simple answer to you is - buy some cats but don't feed them! If the rats are very big & start eating your cats buy some Jack Russell Terriers! ;-) Seriously. Rats need two things. 1. Food (anything will do - mostly our left over debris - they're omnivours just like us) 2. Shelter to hide & breed (again our own debris is the chief culprit) Take away their food & shelter & they'll go elsewhere. Rats are far more common than people think. One survey suggests that no human in a city is more than six feet away from a rat at any given time - day or night. That's an uncomfortable one! It also means there's more there than you could ever get rid of. However in more secluded areas you can eradicate them  either by using other animals (as suggested above). Trapping them - very tedious, especially if you're an Eco Warrior or Hindu and don't want to kill them. Or of course there's the coward's weapon - poison. Usually a warfarin based one that makes their blood so thin that it won't clot, so somewhere down the line they have a haemorrhage and bleed to death. Most pest control officers on this side of the pond tend to use poison. Careful with the other animals though. Also be ready to put up with the stench of dead rats for about a month!

Answer 2

In my case living in the city with a wood fence back yard, I will see rats almost every day runiing at night outside our yard coming to eat left over dog food.  The 2 yorkshire terriers would be scare of the rats I got afraid that the rats would eventually bit them. No way.   I found a place on both sides of the house yard that the dogs would not get to the rat poison.  Bought at Home Depot the square green tablets about 1 1/2 inch square tablet semi- soft and I placed them in the shade by the fence and side of house. The rats love them.  No more rats for maybe  8 weeks. Just replace the tablets when all gone.  The rats die and don't smell they just shrink, sometimes I would see on the ground a pinkish redish swollen sponge tissue Like Brain It had to be one of those rats that just died and explode.  just don't pick up the rats cover them with dirt. For some reason that type of poison doesn't make the rats smell or bring flies.

Just be careful with you dogs.  I also every 2 or 3 months throw 2 to 3 tablets into my home attic since the rats do get in there when they jump off nearby trees.

Keep a cat inside your house, that is something the rats won't mess with; they rather stay outside. The other thing my cat does not allow not even a lizard of a fly to live inside our house.  He is professional at killing any bug ( gray russian cat - does not shed hair)