Rats - How to kill 'em dead?
Discussion
We have had a rat/rats in loft. We had the pest controller round for a few visits. Managed to catch one in a trap and a lot of the bait trays were disturbed so hopefully some more are suffering a painful death as we speak.
The problem is, I haven't found where they have got in so am worried there'll be back once they think the coast is clear. Any recommendations on particularly effective poison I can leave up in the eaves to teach any of the braver ones a lesson? I've been told to use a poison with difenacoum in it, any thoughts?
The problem is, I haven't found where they have got in so am worried there'll be back once they think the coast is clear. Any recommendations on particularly effective poison I can leave up in the eaves to teach any of the braver ones a lesson? I've been told to use a poison with difenacoum in it, any thoughts?
Edited by blueST on Sunday 13th November 11:01
Unfortunately, I live in terraced with no downpipe on my property. At least one of the neighbours has had the critters in the loft too so they probably have a run of the whole row. The lofts have walls between but I bet they can get round at the eaves. I can't see an effective way of making a barrier.
I have had the same problem in my loft (the b
ds have just come back)
The solution turned out to be the internal soil pipes of the houses. My house is one of a pair of semi detached. I have moved to a outside soil pipe as my drains had collapsed. My next door neighbour still has an internal soil pipe. We were getting the rats in the lofts and were killing them via traps/poison. We found out their mode of entry when the local rat catcher used a camera to view the sewers that served our houses. My neighbours sewer pipe had settled slightly at the bottom of the soil pipe and we could see white cavity wall insulation sticking out of a joint. The rats were leaving the sewer at this join and then climbing up the outside of the soil pipe to the lofts.
As I said at the start, I have recently heard the little fkers up there again, so I am again waiting for the council rat man to bring the camera. I wish my neighbour would just rip out the internal soil pipe and have it all running outside the house.
So this might be a possibility for you to explore.
ds have just come back)The solution turned out to be the internal soil pipes of the houses. My house is one of a pair of semi detached. I have moved to a outside soil pipe as my drains had collapsed. My next door neighbour still has an internal soil pipe. We were getting the rats in the lofts and were killing them via traps/poison. We found out their mode of entry when the local rat catcher used a camera to view the sewers that served our houses. My neighbours sewer pipe had settled slightly at the bottom of the soil pipe and we could see white cavity wall insulation sticking out of a joint. The rats were leaving the sewer at this join and then climbing up the outside of the soil pipe to the lofts.
As I said at the start, I have recently heard the little f
kers up there again, so I am again waiting for the council rat man to bring the camera. I wish my neighbour would just rip out the internal soil pipe and have it all running outside the house.So this might be a possibility for you to explore.
trouble with killing them is dead bodies to tidy up and new rats just keep coming who are completely ignorant to your killing methods.
get one of those battery powered electrified raquets they sell for killing flies, modify so the rat presses the button whilst stood on it, they dont come near it again, or visit garden centre and buy small electric fence and rig up (away from reach of passers by
animals become very wary of things they cant see but hurts them, they'd rather move next door where we live many of the farmers only turn their lecy fences on to start with to give some surprises, once the animals have learnt the pain they then turn them off 
(doesn't work with pigs though 
)
get one of those battery powered electrified raquets they sell for killing flies, modify so the rat presses the button whilst stood on it, they dont come near it again, or visit garden centre and buy small electric fence and rig up (away from reach of passers by
animals become very wary of things they cant see but hurts them, they'd rather move next door
where we live many of the farmers only turn their lecy fences on to start with to give some surprises, once the animals have learnt the pain they then turn them off (doesn't work with pigs though )I had a problem in my back garden where the rats were using my garden to get to the neighbours bin bags. Firstly, why are they visiting your loft? Is there something you can ditch that's bringing them in?
I used the snapper type rate traps, baited with peanut butter (they love the stuff). They walk along the edges of a room / divide and rarely go across open space, so place any traps along walls that they walk along. Got seven of them and problem went away (neighbours have since stopped leaving rubbish out also). Thing I like about traps is you remove the bodies have don't have dead rats filling your wall cavities etc.
I used the snapper type rate traps, baited with peanut butter (they love the stuff). They walk along the edges of a room / divide and rarely go across open space, so place any traps along walls that they walk along. Got seven of them and problem went away (neighbours have since stopped leaving rubbish out also). Thing I like about traps is you remove the bodies have don't have dead rats filling your wall cavities etc.
You can get ultrasonic noise emitters that are meant to scare away the rats, something like this though it needs to be in the same room as where the rats are entering, so hooking up a power supply may be an issue. There are battery powered devices though I'd guess they are not as powerful and I don't know how long the batteries would last.
Pvapour said:
farmers only turn their lecy fences on to start with to give some surprises, once the animals have learnt the pain they then turn them off (doesn't work with pigs though )
Have you ever tried to get a pig to cross the line where an electric fence used to be? (doesn't work with pigs though )When we still had the farm we managed never to get them in the house. Waiting on the doorstep, and sat on the windowsill with their little ratty paws on the glass, but never in the house. We used the wheat based difenacoum poison in 24kg bags at a time, kept replacing it till they stopped taking it. I used to sit in the window and shoot the dying ones with the air rifle. After a while the population would grow again and the bait started going again.
The people who bought the farm from us, the woman is a veggie, so refuses to poison them (we even offered to leave half a bag behind for them) They must be totally over-run after a year!
(I'm sure you know this, but never pick the dead ones up with your bare hands, use a pitchfork or something, or at the very least gloves)
Edited by chris1roll on Sunday 13th November 17:31
blueST said:
Unfortunately, I live in terraced with no downpipe on my property. At least one of the neighbours has had the critters in the loft too so they probably have a run of the whole row. The lofts have walls between but I bet they can get round at the eaves. I can't see an effective way of making a barrier.
Get some cans of expanding foam and seal all rat-sized gaps. If they are really determined they will chew through it to get in, if so you could reinforce with some wire mesh, then foam all round it - a rat can chew through thin chicken wire type mesh but usually won't bother unless trapped by it.66comanche said:
Get some cans of expanding foam and seal all rat-sized gaps. If they are really determined they will chew through it to get in, if so you could reinforce with some wire mesh, then foam all round it - a rat can chew through thin chicken wire type mesh but usually won't bother unless trapped by it.
Rats will chew through mortar so expanding foam won't bother them in the slightest. If you have any holes they can get through then whatever you plug it with make sure you also stuff plenty of wire wool in there (cuts their mouths when they try to chew through it)We tried wire cage traps - rats not bothered in the slightest.
Snap traps (big mouse trap things) - got a few, but the rest quickly worked out to avoid them.
Poison - 5kg tub from Rentokill. They take it, and you re-fill for a few weeks until they stop taking it due to being dead.
On the whole, I'm not sure there's much you can do to stop rats. The best strategy seems to be controlling their numbers on your property and hopefully getting a few from the surroundings.
Snap traps (big mouse trap things) - got a few, but the rest quickly worked out to avoid them.
Poison - 5kg tub from Rentokill. They take it, and you re-fill for a few weeks until they stop taking it due to being dead.
On the whole, I'm not sure there's much you can do to stop rats. The best strategy seems to be controlling their numbers on your property and hopefully getting a few from the surroundings.
Henry-F said:
Slaymor is extremely effective as a rat poison and not massively expensive. A tube type dispenser with a clear hopper on top so you can see how the grain is going down / top up as necessary.
Henry
We used Slaymore from the local farm suppliers and it did the trick for us.Henry
As for pigs not respecting electric fencing - we ended up having to install a gate in the middle of the woods we used to use for pigs after the first couple of times we tried to get them into a trailer failed miserably as it entailed them crossing the fence line. We turned our fencing off a few times by accident for days on end and the pigs never went near it.
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