Baiting Rats

[littlegee1988 11]

I don't know about any of you folks out there but I dont get alot of joy with peanut butter, chocolate spreads and other liquid baits. I've also tried coffee grounds and other things powdered down like bird fatballs but always get little to no interest. It basically seems to me that if it's a foreign food to them they're extremely weary of it, where as something they know like say a little pile of grain on a run down the side of a store they've been raiding they will stop for, I've seen similar with fish food pellets on trout farms. If it's not the source they moved in for and are clearly used to, they just don't want to know.

However I'm ever the optimist when it comes to figuring out new methods of keeping our quarry stationary for that clean shot and having a bit of a rat problem at the bottom of my garden I devised this to give a try.

 

"The hunters greatest weapon is their mind"

 

 

[littlegee1988 11]

It's just a suet feeder screwed to the tree and then pinned down into the soil with little stainless pegs, but my thinking is that solid food can be put in there and has to be nibbled at and can't be taken away (I just used the little pegs I got with my mini greenhouse to pin it down, most garden centres have them).

 

"The hunters greatest weapon is their mind"

 

 

[PLEDGEY 496]

Like you say, if it's new to them they don't touch it. This behaviour is called neophobia. I have put peanut butter mixed with olive oil out on the bird table and the rats will go straight to it. The Mrs puts such a varied amount of food scrapes on there that they don't take any notice of what it is. I did a rat job in the attic of a foody pub where I screwed down 6 Fenn traps with peanut butter on and they wouldn't touch it. Checked every day and nothing. Put a trail cam up there and the rats were coming up to the traps and even putting their noses a few millimetres away from the bait, give it a good sniff, but wouldn't take it. In the end I used 2 trail cams to see where they were going in the attic. I could see where they were walking across the rockwool insulation. Put a Fenn on top the insulation then cut around it so the trap, with no bait at all on it, fitted nicely in the hole. Then covered the trap with a thin layer of rockwool. Turned out there were only 3 rats in total but I caught them all this way....booby trap!.

[littlegee1988 11]

Neophobia that's a new one to me, learn something new everyday, I suppose if your species had been getting poisoned in various ways for 100s of years you would be that bit more cautious haha. Thank you very much for the reply mate I think I only have a few young'ns down the bottom of my garden so shouldn't take make to get rid of them

 

"The hunters greatest weapon is their mind"

 

 

[Outofnowhere 93]

Not denying neophobia exists but it fascinates me as to how they get it, why they get it and how is it passed on?

[MR TEA POT 1,287]

try snaring the rats on their runs...no need to bait,and the rats will not be weary of the snares ?

[littlegee1988 11]

It was one of the first things I noticed about their behaviour when I started shooting rats, I always imagined it had become part of their instinct, the same as the way majority of humans have a fear or spiders and snakes because they could cause serious injury or death if bitten and it's been known for many a century now but that's just my uneducated theory lol

 

 

"The hunter's greatest weapon is their mind"

 

 

[littlegee1988 11]

And I do actually have some live traps in the back of the shed I've had a good while, may just stick them down and dispatch with the air rifle.

 

 

 

 

 

"The hunter's greatest weapon is their mind"

 

 

[EDDIE B 3,166]

It was one of the first things I noticed about their behaviour when I started shooting rats, I always imagined it had become part of their instinct, the same as the way majority of humans have a fear or spiders and snakes because they could cause serious injury or death if bitten and it's been known for many a century now but that's just my uneducated theory lol"The hunter's greatest weapon is their mind"

I think fear is something we learn more than say "instinct" for the most part. Things like "fear of spiders" or a "scary movie" is caused by reaction from our peers. Usually parents passing it onto their kids.

[littlegee1988 11]

Then I suppose it would more be the passing of knowledge through the generations, the same way a predator would teach it's young to hunt, the likes of "prey" animals if you would will pass on knowledge of danger, as I say I'm purely speculating as I'm no expert.

 

"The hunter's greatest weapon is their mind"

 

 

[tilimangro 1,013]

There's an inate sense of fear

That is literally in the genes

Fly a cardboard cut out of a hawk over chicks and they automatically freeze and hide

Msome vert interesting studies on it out there

Chicks of birds that were fed something that made them feel shit would automatically avoid it

[tilimangro 1,013]

http://sheldrake.org

[Arry 22,456]

try snaring the rats on their runs...no need to bait,and the rats will not be weary of the snares

That takes me back to when I was a kid, we used to snare them on an old tip on the runs that when from one bramble patch to another.

 

Had a rat I'm my green compost bin for about a week put a baited trap in tried assorts, nothing. then baited it with one of them blue rat bait blocks, bag job done. Some thing in them they can't resist, smells like chocolate.

 

Cheers Arry

[littlegee1988 11]

I was just looking at them the other day I may have to try one of nothing's comes up with the methods I'm trying now, solid and liquid bait. They're going for both but so damn skittish they won't sit still for a spilt second. I'm currently laid just inside the doorway resting on my gun bag awaiting my scaley tailed adversaries to give me a clean shot

[PLEDGEY 496]

I was just looking at them the other day I may have to try one of nothing's comes up with the methods I'm trying now, solid and liquid bait. They're going for both but so damn skittish they won't sit still for a spilt second. I'm currently laid just inside the doorway resting on my gun bag awaiting my scaley tailed adversaries to give me a clean shot

Put some wooden pallets down, I've done this before. They'll feel safe underneath there but you'll still be able to get a shot at them. Put a few down spaced apart, then if they scatter when you shoot one they'll bolt to another pallet where they'll feel safe. Don't always work like that but it'll increase your chances of shooting them.