I have used hav-a-heart traps and regular rat traps for years. I feed the rats for several nights before I bait the regular rat traps. I generally cover the hav-a-heart trap with something and dribble the food from the front to the back. The feed 'em before you kill 'em works well for me. I feed them around the rat trap (whichever one I use) with the trap not set. It kind of desensitizes them, I guess.

MY BIGGEST PROBLEM AND MAYBE WAT IS DRIVING ME MAD IS THAT THE ONLY TIME THEY ARE OUT IS DRING THE DAY WHEN I CAN HAVE THE TRAPS SET

Can you put out poison without endangering other animals? I have mixed d-con with peanut butter and had some success. Maybe put peanut butter out for a couple nights, then add the d-con.

ladybug above is on the right track. Rats/mice are very suspicious animals. Maybe you could feed them right around and even on the traps, then set them later.

I've used the Rat Zapper but caught only one rat in it. They can pretty much get out of sticky traps.

Our local pest control guy who works for the city gave us these instructions and it has never failed yet: Get yourself the standard killing-type snap rat traps, some creamy (NOT chunky) peanut butter, some wire and cotton balls. Tear off a small (pencil eraser size) chunk of cotton ball and get a SMALL amount of peanut butter. With your fingers work the peanut butter into the cotton. The idea is to saturate the cotton with the peanut butter, but NOT to have so much that the rat can simply lick it off. You want him to have to grab the cotton ball, really sink his teeth in and tug on it. Take your peanut butter ball and wire it to the bait area of the rat trap so the rat cannot simply knock it loose and carry it away. Set the trap as normal. Now when he has to stop and grab the peanut butter ball he's done for, quickly.

I've never had this fail in all the years I've been using it. Works the first time, every time. However, I set my traps at night only so as to not catch any of my animals, wild birds, etc.

Good luck! Rats carry many nasty diseases and can kill your poultry.

My jack russell gets ours ,shes great .Some were pretty big.,Rats and chickens go together..I guess easy access to food.

When the house mice ate the peanut butter off the spring traps without springing them, our neighbour suggested baiting them with raisins. It worked perfectly. They have to pull on the raisin to get it out and the tough raisin skins pull the spring.

Raw bacon works well too on the spring traps. - Ellen

I make peanut butter decon sandwiches and stuff them down the holes at night. These work everytime for me and stuffed down the holes the birds cant get them either.Then I cover all the holes , fill them in, if I see a hole redug I know there is still an acitve critter in there and he gets and extra sandwich. Rotate poisons so the rats dont work up and immunity to just one. The cats cant handle adult rats and I dont have a small dog so this works well for me. I've never lost a bird to poison either, I'm very careful about putting it out at night and removing any that can be seen by the birds from the holes in the morning.

The peanut butter cotton ball plan sounds very good.
I don't like d-con b/c then there are rotting rats around that the loving dog seems to find! Just my preference.
I personally like the sounds of the cotton ball and pb trick!

i think these rats are taunting me!! they sit next to the traps . tried the bacon, beer, peanut butter, etc.. maybe tonight something will happen. i have seen no trace of the guys at night but 2:30 in the afternoon for four days now they are out. so like i said i cannot put out snap traps or poison during the day. thats when the ducks and rabbots are out. i stayed out last night until about 1 am and right after dark there were no rats. it is making me crazy!!!ave tried everything and nothing has worked.

Here is an idea I saw years ago.
I haven't tried it, but I have no doubt that it works.

Get a big plastic garbage can.
With no lid on it, cover the top with posterboard.
Cut a big X in the posterboard centered on the can.
Suspend a rat treat just above the center of the X.
Make sure there is a way for rats and mice to get on top of the can.

When the rat goes out in the center to get the treat,
he falls thru into the can and can't climb back out.

Sounds like it would work great to me.

Pooh Bear

I'd invest in a .22 and load the sucker with snake shot .... if the lil buggers are out during the daytime hours, you have clear shot of them. Pick em off one by one.

If you have neighbors that live close, tell them that the neighborhood is being over run and that your concerned about disease ... they won't mind the broken windows from stray pellets.

Dan

Try this one. Make up a mixture of plaster of paris and wholemeal flower with a small amount of caster (icing) sugar for smell and put that out for the rats. Must be enough to fill their stomachs with the plaster of paris (more for plural rats), so they block up and cannot eat or digest food.
Here in Australia there is no problem with other animals geting at it, but there may be one in the USA I.E. Squirrels and Chipmonks.
The rats do not know what is going on and eventually black your establishment, the older ones may work it out, not so the younger ones.
The best part is that being non toxic animals that eat the dead rats don't get poisoned.

I just bought a repellant called "Rat-A-Way". I have heard great things about it. Don't know yet if it works or not, but we were having a major problem with mice eating away the electrical parts of our farm machinery, brakes under our camper, and even all of the electricity connections in the hood of our truck! I don't want to use poisons since you never just kill the thing you hate.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rat/mouse repellant

a jack russell dog....do any neighbors have one?

We have rats in one of our barns. The little buggers burrow through the ASPHALT! When we have some free time, we turn the garden hose on and put it in one of their holes. Then we stand guard with pitchforks. When they finally start scurrying out, we impale the little b*st*rds with the forks. Then we leave them on the forks overnight as a warning to any survivors.

CHERRY, I feel your pain. Some years ago when I had a stable I went through the same stuff. I tried every poison and trap I could find. I really don't like poisons as one of my dogs was killed by eating a dead poisoned rat that he found.

I was not a big fan of cats at the time but the day a mouse came out and sat in the middle of the dining room to watch me eat breakfast!!! that was the last straw.

I put an ad out that I would provide a home for any spayed or nuetered cat. I ended up with 13 of them. With 23 acres and a barn they had plenty of hunting territory to share with each other. I only put out as much food as they would consume by the time I finished feeding the horses.

The only mice or rats that I saw after that were the dead 'presents' that some of the cats would bring me. No more rat droppings in the tack room or cupboards - Happy Days!!

HOWEVER... My nieghbor who also had a stable mentioned one day that she very suddenly had a huge rat and mouse
problem. She wanted to know if the same thing was happening to me. Well.....no,
though I can't imagine why ;-)