Is there a better RAT trap?

Help me brainstorm options for obliterating the rats that live on my farm.

We have chickens.  Chickens are messy.  Finding a way to clean up that mess at the end of the day will reduce the food for the rats.

Compost - we now have the spinning system that the rats cannot get in.  So no kitchen waste for the rats to eat.

These are day-time rats that are most active from about noon to two hours after sunset.

I've tried snapper traps, but they are hard for my arthritic hands to set.  The nice thing about these is the kill is instant.  

The black snapper traps are easy to set don't kill the rats right away.  The rat can escape.  I think the rat is too big and the teeth on the trap make too much area that the force of the snap isn't strong enough.  If I hear it, I have to finish off the rat with a stick and this is hurting my feelings very very much.  I don't want the rat to suffer, I just want it quickly dead.

Live trapping - they don't notice.  They don't go for the bait.  All the usual from peanut butter to eggs to fruit, to grain...even bacon.   none of these work.  What I have to do is to block all but one run, then get them used to that and then put the trap there.  I can catch one rat every 10 or so days.  The trap rate is less than the population increase.  

I need a better rat trap.

Help!  

Look at Shawn Woods on YouTube, this is all he does. He has tested hundreds of different traps.

I will check it out.

I should mention that whatever I use cannot hurt the chickens.  

r ranson wrote:I should mention that whatever I use cannot hurt the chickens.

In my chicken houses, I can hang the feeders above the perches and that has helped, but we don't have a day-time rat problem.

Hubby read that it is better to have a lot of traps - like 20 - and bait them all, but don't set them for multiple days, then one day, lock your chickens somewhere else and set all the traps, so the rats will have gotten sloppy and not taught everyone that traps are dangerous. Downside is that it's expensive.

We use this trap - the metal bar at the top still has to be pulled down, but at least your fingers aren't in the kill zone. I don't know if that's the type you were having trouble with.

Yeah - they're plastic and come packaged in plastic, but we've found them easy to use. I made some wooden boxes out of scrap lumber to put them in with a hole that was too small for a chicken to get in, but that's more work, so we only do that if we have to - it was also more awkward to set and empty the trap.

I bought these recently and they work great.  I have them in my coop.  The chickens can't set them off.  Twice I have caught two rats at the same time, so apparently the rats that are very small will be in it eating and another comes along and sets it off.  I really like these.  They are strong enough to kill the rats immediately, none have escaped, and nothing else can get caught in them.

Rat trap on Amazon

Maybe it is because of the rainy weather we are having, because all of a sudden our hunters have a mice problem.

I check about a month ago and found no sign of mice.  

The hunters came to spend the night and came back to say they were going home.  Why?

Because of mice.  So I went to check and I have never seen so much dropping.

We use the trap like Jay's picture, only for mice.  We bait with a small amount of peanut butter so they really have to get on the trap.  The first day we caught two. Today is the second day and we caught another one.

I know there are rats here because there were dead ones in the unfinished house though I have never seen any.

Another option might be something like RatX, made of natural ingredients and no secondary kill effects (Not safe to put where chikens could eat it)

There is also a product called Conntraceptol Forte, this is birth control for rats. It is also natural and plant based. It will not kill them but it would reduce future population growth and could be a supplement to trapping/killing. I think it is pretty expensive.

Anything edible is out.  The chickens and wildlife can get everywhere.  

Rat X is not poisonous, it is made from corn gluten.  It just kills rats and mice specifically because of how their digestive system works.  Somehow the corn gluten swells in their stomachs and they stop eating and die by dehydration.  Apparently does not affect other animals in this way.

I understand.  It's just the non-edibles is a non-negotiable condition of the others on the farm.  

I need to focus on finding a trap that can work.

We have had initial success with traps that electrocute the rats. You can get realy fancy and it will alert you by bluetooth when it goes off so you can quickly clear and reset the trap.

1)  They are very pricey, $50-$100

2)   Can not be used outdoors (where moisture is an issue).

3)   They seemed great at first (several killed each of the first few nights) but then seemed to stop working. Not sure if the battery charge got too low (claims it will fire almost 100 times per set of C cells), we did not clean them properly (they say to use hydrogen peroxide), or the rats simply "got wise". Although, apparently it worked great when I lent it to a friend...

It is expensive, and I have not personally used it, but I have heard really good things about the GoodNature A24 Rat and Mouse trap. It uses a small CO cartridge like from a pellet gun to fire a metal piece to kill the rat mouse. The rodent falls down, and the trap is automatically reset for another rodent to come in and be caught. If it is mounted outside, it allows cats, racoons, etc to come and pick up the free food. If its inside, you still have to clean up, but it should be pretty hard for a chicken to get hurt with it as is... and I think I have seen some boxes that could help as well. It should not be hard to set. And it will kill instantly.

https://www.automatictrap.com/collections/shop/products/home-trapping-kit-a24-rat-mouse-trap

Someone mentioned Shawn woods reviewing traps, and here is a video of him reviewing this trap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqlwUXP-ubI

Here is one of their promo videos, showing the trap being effective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s2PcbFu0nw

I have had rats and mice on our dairy farm.  One of our cats moved into the chicken coop.  One day I reached into the nest to collect eggs and there was kittens in the nest.  Those kittens grew up with the chickens and never bothered them.  Now I have lots of cats in the chicken coop and no rats or mice.  If a chicken or duck hatches out babies I lock mom and babies in a separate pen till the babies grow somewhat.  I have plenty of spare cats that get along with chickens if anyone should need some!!!

I wish I had cats that would do that.

It appears my rats are on to me.  They hate peanutbutter.  So now I have to train them that it's yummy and safe.

The best way I've found so far is to put the traps on the runs and catch them as they speed by.

I've watched most of Shawn Woods videos.  He is a heck of a skilled craftsman as well as an interesting youtuber.  

Here's the best trap I've seen him use for rats.  It's just a bunch of old school spring rat traps (which I read are hard for you to set, but there are modern traps that are easier to set and I'm sure could be used in place of these.).  This method prevents the rat from coming in from some weird angle and pretty much guarantees a snapped neck.


To keep the chickens from sticking their heads in, another box could be used and placed on top of it with a hole in it big enough for a rat, but too small for a chicken.

To hear Shawn say this is his best trapping system is pretty much a guarantee to be the best system.

Like Jay said, and like he mentions in the video, bait the traps for a while but don't set them.  Let the rats get used to the setup, and then load it up.

Or, if you want to go totally natural route (and I'm going to say this is about the most permie possible way to catch rats), call this guy!  He TRAINS! mink from fur farms to hunt side by side with his dogs to hunt rats and chase them out of holes.  It's quite entertaining.  I heard Shawn say sometime he might collaborate with  Joseph (the Mink Man) and do some kind of hunting episode together.  

Edit, I don't see why these easy to set traps couldn't be modified to work in the same system.  https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Infestation-Solutions-AntiRodent-Protection/dp/B01MZ19B3O/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=easy+set+rat+trap&qid=1626726447&sr=8-6

Where I'm stumbling is bait.  These rats don't eat anything I've tried.  They are strange creatures that don't like jam, peanut butter, anchovies, bacon...

They are grey-ish rats, not the black ones we would see downtown that like human food.  

Yeah, that's weird about them not liking that stuff.  I see Shawn sprinkle sunflower seeds all over the ground in front of his setups to get the rats in a comfortable eating mode, and then he does use the usual stuff like peanut butter on the actual trap.  He also sprinkles the sunflower seeds behind the traps so the rat has to climb over the trigger to get more.

Maybe whatever the chickens are eating for their food since the rats probably are used to eating some of that?

You stated that the mess from the chickens is the food that is attracting the rats, would that not be the bait? Instead of removing it, using it?

i have wood rats in the barn who would raid anything i have curing there (mostly garlic and nuts) but also won’t touch traditional bait foods like peanut butter. i’ve had to settle for just making sure there’s a set snap-trap on each of the approaches to the curing rack. doesn’t help much here, i know.

Also, when trying to bait the rats (or other rodents) that they will only eat where they are somewhat comfortable. Some people put traps right in the path of travel, but no where the rats are actually eating. Make sure its not placement of the traps rather than choice of bait.

I do put the traps where they feed.  I think the smell of peanut butter is putting them off.  

They don't mind the human smell.  one of them climbed up my leg yesterday.  There was yelling.  And tears.  Me no like rodents.  

my rats also don`t go for peanut butter (not surprising, they probably never heard of peanut butter before). I had much more success with crackers and bread heels.

I would try to keep the chickens area as clean as possible, take whatever you clean out to another area. Let the rats find that area and feel safe, then start trapping them there using the feed as bait.

I think traps can work for reducing the numbers but the traps probably won't be a long term, sustainable "solution".
As long as the chickens are there the rats will be too and you will have to continue to adjust your techniques because they are smart and will probably get smarter since we are basically selecting for intelligence.

I've caught a lot of rats using cheese whiz as bait.  They seem to like it better than peanut butter or real cheese.

I have never had a rat problem but I have to reduce the population of mice every October in our hunting camp.

In my opinion mice and rats are smarter than people give them credit for. They are not smart enough to know what a trap is but they can learn very quickly.  If A rodent sees another get caught in a trap, or dead in a trap,  they will avoid it no matter what type of bait you put in it.

What I have found that works is to gang set ( multiple traps) with 1 type of trap. They have to be the same one whether its the wooden type or the new plastic ones with teeth. But only use 1 type. Its what the rat/mouse sees, not how it works, is what I'm trying to say.  leave those traps out till the catch rate drops.  
Once the catch rate goes down, remove those traps and replace them with another type (look). Keep swapping the traps every time the catch rate goes down. Then replace those traps. It's best if you can find a third type of trap but if you don't have that then just rotate the first trap you used back in.  When you switch traps you catch the rats that have wisened up to and avoid the first traps.

In my opinion using peanut butter or cheese whiz is not a good option. That stuff is messy and gets all over the traps and into little nooks that are hard to clean and it can go rancid or moldy. Stick with seeds, nuts, corn kernels etc .  And change up these baits  frequently also.

 Gang plank or Adirondack mouse trap styles can work well also, are inexpensive and have the ability to catch multiple animals and will not harm your chickens. A quick search on YouTube will show you how to make one. A 5 gallon bucket works well for mice but you will need something a little deeper for rats. A little caution with these types. If you decide to use these without liquid you will either have to kill them yourself after a catch or you will take them away from your place and let them go. The first way can be difficult for some people and the second way will probably transfer your problem to another human on another homestead. And that's not being humane to other humans.

Finally,  mice and rats are dirty filthy animals that will poop on everything, spread disease, make you and your animals miserable at best and make you very sick at worst. This is a war that I/you need and should intend to win. I catch most of them the first few days in camp and can live relatively peacefully for the rest of the month.  I get it that some do not feel this way and are more concerned with doing it humanely. Not me. I want them dead and I don't care how I have to do it. They don't play humanely so neither will I. If they would stop getting in my food and pooping in my dishes then I would do it differently. Until then , I'll catch them any way I can whether it kills them instantly or in 1 minute.

Lorinne Anderson wrote:We have had initial success with traps that electrocute the rats. You can get realy fancy and it will alert you by bluetooth when it goes off so you can quickly clear and reset the trap.

1)  They are very pricey, $50-$100

2)   Can not be used outdoors (where moisture is an issue).

3)   They seemed great at first (several killed each of the first few nights) but then seemed to stop working. Not sure if the battery charge got too low (claims it will fire almost 100 times per set of C cells), we did not clean them properly (they say to use hydrogen peroxide), or the rats simply "got wise". Although, apparently it worked great when I lent it to a friend...

This was my experience with the electric traps.  Huge initial success and then it fell off rapidly.  Removing it, switching ot the plastic ones in chicken free areas, and then bringing them back a few months later I had some success as well but less so.

I've seen those ones where you have the rats fall into a bucket of water and they drown, but havent actually used one of those before.  It also takes a little while for them to drown, which is part of the reason i've been hesitant.

The snapper traps aren't doing great.  Maybe one rat per 10 traps per night.
I have some baited and some not.  The not ones I put in the runs and they have better luck catching the rats.

But yesterday I saw a rat figuring out how to run through the trap.  They put their feet just so and go super-duper fast.  That way they don't trigger the snapping.  sigh.

Need to find a bucket trap system next.  How?  

I use a 5 gallon bucket drill a hole on both sides of the bucket drill a hole thru both ends of a water bottle. install a rod thru the holes thru the bottle make sure the bottle spins freely. put water in the bucket and peanut butter on the bottle. when the rat goes for the peanut butter the bottle spins and rat falls in the water and drowns. I have several set up around the property and catch 4-5 rats per bucket every night sometimes more

I also found this trap  online haven't tried it yet but it looks interesting

   The best rat control ever...
   We had rats all around the hen house. i set traps daily but it was a losing battle. The clincher came when I went out to the coop one day, saw 4 rats running across the yard, and another dozen scattered when I opened the hen house door. So I tried something else. I had heard that rats can't burp. Based on that I came up with this formula. The very next day there were no rats to be seen.
   It'll cost you just 2 dollars. Buy a box of chocolate cake mix, and a box of baking soda.
Mix the dry ingredients and mix them well. You have to disperse the lumps in the soda. If a rat bites down on a lump of soda he will stop eating.
Put a cupful in a can or small box, and set it in its side where the rats can find it.
The rats will chow down, and when the soda hits their stomach acid they swell up and die. It doesn't seem to bother any other animals if they get into it.
  Rats are nomadic. After a few rat-free weeks some other rats found us and moved in. Another round of the mix and they vanished too. Now I put fresh mix out every few weeks to keep the varmints gone.

I've had great luck with a tall kitchen garbage can with a swing top.  It's nonpoisonous, it's quick, and it works like a charm.  You can dump out the dead rat or mouse and leave it for the other predators to find.

Fill the 12 gallon can at least 1/3 to 1/2 full of water.  Tape the edges of the swing top down so it won't swing, put 1/2  tsp. of peanut butter in the middle of the swing top.  Place the can about 6 inches away from a patio chair or table, a deck box, something that is as tall as the can so it can jump across onto the can lid.   In the greenhouse I put it near the edge of the raised bed.

For 4 nights with the lid taped solid let it get the peanut butter, moving the can away a little each night to about 8  inches so it has to jump.  On the fifth night remove the tape to the swing lid, put the peanut butter in the middle of the swing lid.  It will have to commit by jumping and it will fall in....so far for me it's worked every time.

I got this at the local hardware store.

Ha! That's a lot like the Flip N Slide approach.  I'm thinking about getting one of these.

The Victor snap traps work well. I just have old school wooden ones around, which seem to work well. But I will say, glue traps are great too. And honestly I don't care about being humane to rodents, they do too much damage for me to care if they have a quick death or not. The only good rat ---is a dead rat.

I don't like to kill critters, but it's true, mice and rats are dangerous.  

Their droppings can be dangerous.  They can tear apart whatever they have access to, in sheds and in houses.  They have to chew on solid things to keep their teeth, that are always growing, at the right length.....so they are always chewing on something.

Car fires and house fires are often caused by rodents chewing car wires.  Since 2020 when more people are working and staying home than ever before and aren't driving, the traffic reports have had so many car fires in them.  

I've tried driving live ones away, dropping them off in an extremely remote place, but the traps that live-catch them get filled with their "warning" scent and don't work after a while.

We use the plastic traps with the teeth, love 'em.  I gave up baiting traps almost a year ago once I better understood rodent behaviour.  Knowing that they generally run with their whiskers in contact with a wall meant I could learn to set my traps perpendicular to the wall. I may be way late to this learning, by the way.  Also, we're in a house bus so it is a small space, but once I started doing that instead of randomly placing traps in places where I've seen the buggers and hoping peanut butter, chocolate, seeds, whatever would draw them in I started catching HEAPS more.  When we get rodents in the bus now, they're never alive for longer than about 36 hours and I've gone from using 6 or so mouse traps and 2 rat traps to just 1 rat and 2 mouse traps, never any bait.

I work in predator trapping on dairy farms.  Mustelids and hedgehogs are the target species, but rats are probably our second highest catch and we use salted rabbit as bait (in traps that are boxed and meshed to exclude native birds).  Because of that work, I can comment on the GoodNature A24 traps someone mentioned earlier in the tread...they don't really work.  Occasionally you'll get something, but camera traps show that animals aren't interested in them and most farmers ask me to take out the A24s that other contractors put in.  You're likely better off taking the money you'd spend on an A24 and spending it on snap traps, live capture traps, or measures to exclude rodents.

What does seem to work for all target species tested is a "leaky fence" (thanks to the Cacophony Project here in NZ for all their excellent, outside the box, creative research).  It's an obstruction that's just tall enough to make it worthwhile for the animal to run down the face of the obstruction looking for a point of entry through it rather than over it - it doesn't even have to be that tall.  If you intentionally provide them points of entry, you know exactly where to set your traps.  Cacophony Project also shows that live capture traps have a much higher engagement rate.  I haven't tested this myself because, well, we've got our rodent situation pretty well under control - at least in areas I care about.

Finally, at least New Zealand, anything you can buy at the hardware store and feed to rodents to kill them is very likely:

A) cruel and inhumane
B) a persistent toxin that will accumulate in your soil, your chickens and their eggs when they eat poisoned mice, and you when you eat your chickens and their eggs

I assume if it is true here it's true everywhere, but it is an assumption.

I left the tall swing-top can in the greenhouse awaiting its next location, assuming things were under control, and two mice jumped into it without peanut butter.  I'm guessing the smell of whatever remained on the lid was enough to lure them across an 8" jump.

I've now got it set up at the side of a path where another packrat is viciously eating a native shrub I've been nuturing for the last 4 years.  I put a standard garbage can upside down next to it, which is slightly taller, and a long branch at about a 45 degree angle leading up to the garbage can, with a couple spots of peanut butter on the ramp, on the garbage can and on the swing-top can.  We're on night 3 so keeping my fingers crossed.

I spent most of the summer training the rats to think of peanut butter as a friendly and safe food.  Then I tried many of the traps recommended in this thread - both homemade and commercial.

I caught one rat.

In comparison, we had 8 drown in the duck's water bucket in that same time period.

The next thing we are set to try is getting some extremely stinky soaps like Irish springs and stuffing them into the rat holes.  

If that fails, a friend suggested I mix cornbread mix with equal parts backing soda and put them in a bait dispenser.  

I have been on a mousecatching mission here for ages and caught a total of 0 with peanut butter (not for lack of trying, though). It's not a common food here, so maybe it's just not their palate...

then one day i happened to have the security camera open and saw a mouse grab and make off with a piece of chicken I had given my elderly dog but he apparently dropped and forgot about.
since that time i've been baiting my mousetraps (those tomcat ones, which really do live up to the hype) with liverwurst and catching mice regularly.

r ranson wrote:I spent most of the summer training the rats to think of peanut butter as a friendly and safe food.  Then I tried many of the traps recommended in this thread - both homemade and commercial.

I caught one rat.

It has been a particularly bad year for rats in my ecosystem - they've multiplied worse than rabbits. I'm mostly worried that 4-legged rat predators will show up, and decide that chickens and ducks are easier feasting, so I am doggedly trying to find something that will work.

I'm quite convinced that they're multiplying faster than the number I'm killing.

In comparison, we had 8 drown in the duck's water bucket in that same time period.

I've found some in the goose buckets, but I'm unsure whether they drowned independently or if the geese "helped". The geese certainly aren't reliable rat catchers.

The next thing we are set to try is getting some extremely stinky soaps like Irish springs and stuffing them into the rat holes.

Soaps are high in fat - they might eat it, but will it hurt them or just encourage them to reproduce?

If that fails, a friend suggested I mix cornbread mix with equal parts backing soda and put them in a bait dispenser.  

I tried the baking soda mixed with chicken feed dust and didn't notice a difference. I was told chocolate cake mix - I wonder if they're attracted to the sugar? Is chocolate toxic to rats the way it is to dogs?

All said and done, I've had the most success by putting a kill trap baited and set, tied inside a live trap with the kill trap resting on the live trap trigger. Many rats know how to trigger a kill trap so they can then steal the bait safely. However, the kill trap snapping sets off the live trap trigger so as long as they can't get out of the live trap (small ones sometimes can), I succeed.

Also, my rats appear to be cannibals. I haven't tried using that fact as bait, but I'm starting to get desperate...

Every time I hear the owls call, I tell them I'd appreciate a little help here, but I think they're fat and happy owls already! A friend's taught them how to catch tree chickens (AKA squirrels) and we've got a seemingly endless supply of those also!

Soap is made of fats, I don't know if Irish Spring is soap.  I'm just calling it soap because it's a cleaner in bar form.

I've read a lot of places that rats are sensitive to smells and the stink of some modern cleaning products repels rats.  I don't like the idea of just moving them on to someone else' yard, but I've tried everything else I can so far.  

We had mild luck with a sample of unsinkables or whatever they are called and tide pods.  The tide pod didn't last very long but the unstinkables (little stinky laundry orbs) kept the  rats out of the shop for about 5 months.  I just don't like the size of the orbs as rats love moving stuff and might take it to where the chickens are.