You might check out the possibility of a poison which is non toxic to animals other than rodents. I know that there are some out there which work on rodents' inability to metabolize larger quantities of vitamin A.

George
Tahlequah, OK

g'day animalfarms,

we use solid block baits we by from the produce agency grain or feed store for you i think?

we set the blocks under home made bait stations made from plastic 2 litre icecream containers this to protect the bait from weather and make it a little more difficult for dogs to find.

over the years we have had dogs eat the baits one was a mini foxie or mini rat dog, they never even got sick though there is a warning on the pack. as it can take up to 2 weeks for a rat to get enough of the bait to do the job in dogs you might have to force feed them to get that result. that is just our experience.

what you have to do is get complete control of the rodents this is the only effective way we know of the brand over here is "tomcat", blue coloured blocks.

so you should be able to find places the dogs can't get to to place your baits.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

I used regular rat poison in my garden. I have 3 little dogs. This might
be too much trouble for you, but this is how I did it. I put the poison out
at night, when it was almost dark. In the morning before sunset, but still
light enough for me to see, I would pick them all up. I didn't like getting
up so early, but I did for about 5 days. As long as the poison was still
being eaten. I didn't let my dogs out at night.

You need to determine why they're in the yard. They won't be interested in a compost pile of grass clippings.

Some things to consider at your place or at a neighbor's is what sort of food is available. Pet food? Bird seed? Tree fruits on the ground? Or what?

Next step is to get rid of the food.

My DD works for a pest Control and says to change poisons each week to keep them at bay.
I used the Decon for several weeks, and now the suckers are back!
I'll be hitting up the hardware store for some of that chunk stuff for the rats to chomp on!
Just Yukky suckers! Bleaght!!!!!!

There are live traps available but then you would need to drop it in a tub of water to drown the rodents if that's still legal.
An old time method would be to put lye out on rodent pathways and their feet would burn from waking in the lye and they would chew their feet off and die.
Keep the pet foods and livestock feed in metal containers to avoid attracting and feeding them.

I may add a few things:

In addition to using store brand rat baits, you can make some of your own.
There are various formulas that I have tried.
Basically you have a BASE ingredient. I choose corn meal and creamy peanutbutter. Then mix it with combination of the following:
--sugar
-*- baking powder/
-*- ground pure aspirin
-+- plaster of paris
also, provide some water for them.
All [-*- ]items will cause digestion problem. Aspirin, may cause internal bleeding.
As long as you get them eat your bait you are on the right track. Keep it on. Do not expect them drop dead right away. You want them to get sick and die.That is best you can do.

For those of you with dogs/cats.

As suggested, take a big metal coffee can and cut an entrance for rats. You can do this with a metal shearer.
Now invert that can over the bait dish. Put a brick or stone on the can so cats/dogs/wind cannot tople it.
So this is cat/dog proof, wind proof, rain proof, bird proof, squirrel proof,...
You can use the same idea for rat traps but the cover has to be big enough to accomodate the trap to snap without any obsticle.

Bizarre circumstances.

Mice are seed-eaters, I've never heard of them damaging growing vegetables. I have a garden that is loaded with field-mice, they do no damage that I am aware of. Rats are not usually much of a problem either, other than with sweet ripe fruits. Have you seen either actually damaging or eating plants? If not, it's probably some other type of critter. A high mice and/or rat population in the vicinity doesn't necessarily mean they are the cause.

Voles are big chewers of all kinds of produce -- they love tomatos, peppers, any kind of root crop, peas and beans. Basically, anything edible low to the ground.

I haven't tried it, but my brother in law makes traps by taking a five gallon bucket, cutting a couple of small notches across the top to support a thin dowel, hanging a short lenght of dental floss from the center of the dowel, and putting a glob of peanut butter at the end of the dental floss. Then, you fill the bucket with water to just below the floss. The voles/mice try to get the peanut butter, lose their grip, fall in, and drown. He claims to have killed hundreds this way. They own 10 acres surrounded on 3 sides by corn/soybean fields, so they have an abundant supply of voles.

I know the damage was done by these rodents as I've seen them eating myself. This time I had mostly had sweet corn, several different kinds of dry beans, watermelons, cantelope, sunflowers, and pickleing cucombers. Everything was ruined and totally inedible. The only thing they didn't bother was my onions & the fire ants got them.

I could easily put out poison in a way so the dogs can't get it. My concern is the dog catching and eating the pests after they ate the poison but aren't dead yet. I have already had to put down a young dog (just over a year old) because she was haveing siezures. The first thing the vet asked was "Did she eat any mice that might have goten into poison?" That time it just happened to run in the bloodline. This Giant Malamute costs too much to take that chance.

Is it true that mice/rats can't burp? Would something like that work (bait with anything that would cause gas)?

Any other ideas

animalfarms

I have exact the same experience as "animalfarms"

Rats are seed eaters, true, but also eat the seedlings (very young sprouts) of the seeds that they love, which are:
sunflower, melons, beans, corn, peas, squash, pumpkins, anything that is high in protein. They also eat ripening melon, gourds(for seeds).
So knowing this, you can make bait from the same stuff they love; coarse corn meal, crushed up sunflower seeds, peanut butter,..

Add your killer ingriedients to the above. Add some sugar for EXTRA flavor, add baking powder, milled aspirin tablets(powdered),.

Feed them generously.
Serve the baite fresh every day,. They are picky (Grin!)
The more they eat, the sooner they will die.
Last year I did all that plus store-bout baits, plus rat traps, plus live traps.

This year there are not as many of them around. I will feed them this fall again.
Another interesting thing: I had a bag of BONEMEAL fertilier. The rats tore the package and ate the whole thing. PROTEIN PROTEIN

This spring, for the first time, I did have either the rats or squirrels dig up and eat freshly-planted pea-seed. Once the sprouts got to light they didn't touch them. It's pretty clear that they don't like growing leaves.

Rats are much more omnivorous than mice; I can't believe that mice are responsible for any significant garden damage. Moles and voles I don't have any experience with, but the OP is about rats and mice. I'd put my money on the rats out of the two - have you seen the mice eating plants or mature produce in the garden? And I'd still suspect some other varmint quite strongly.

Voles are hard to tell from small rats or large mice, unless you catch one and look at it closely. And... they are HIGHLY destructive.

Cyrus Gardner, thanks for the recipe! If one could use some concentrated form of vitamin A, that would make a rodent poison which would probably not harm cats or dogs. Rodents cannot readily metabolize an overdose of vitamin A. Hence they die.

George

I agree with denninmi's idea. I just worked in the garden which is something of a mess right now, between clearing out summer stuff and planting fall stuff, cages and buckets everywhere. One 5gal bucket was laying at 45 angle, sort propped on the edge of a raised bed. Inside were 2 dead voles. They must have gone in and been unable to climb the slippery slope to get out. So now I'm gonna try your brother in law's method. Now if only I could convince the ground hog to get in a bucket!