Good bait for rat traps

[tapir]

We have a track and hedges running alongside the house, and recently, a family of rats have moved in. We've bought a humane rat trap (there's no way we'd kill an animal), and have caught 5 of them so far.

I was wondering if any of you have had good success with specific bait? So far we've caught them using spam, but I'm concerned that the rats will get wise to spam = goodbye, so want to vary the bait a bit.

Any baits that you've found is irresistible to rats?

Cheers.

(btw, we're relocating the rats in a large wooded area a couple of miles away, there are no homes in the area)

 

[ladylola]

try here
//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1157206#1157206

Several differing ideas.
Personally I've used anything from bread to stale ham, and caught loads .

 

[donglebang]

they are vermin and carry life threatening disease why are you letting them go and only a couple of miles away boy if they liked your hamthey will be back

 

[stuart45]

I was told years ago that releasing rats is illegal.

 

[i_am_fubar]

Oh for [insert generic deity]'s sake. Humans are vermin that can carry life threatening deseases. Catch rats, take them to the middle of a wood/forrest and release them. After all, their just minding their own buisness.

As to it being illigal. So are a lot of things that people do everyday. The law is wrong, not the act.

 

[donglebang]

the law cant be wrong as it is the law! humans are not classed as vermin ! but the humans who are vermin well ok lets get rid of them too

 

[tapir]

Update; a nice blob of peanut butter on the spam bait seems attractive to them; 2 furry critters relocated in 24 hours. thanks for all your feedback

 

[Thermo]

you may want to seek the advice of a pest control company. It may well be that your humane traps might not be able to keep pace with them.

 

[ladylola]

One thing I forgot to say.
You ask if the rats get wise to a trap and won't come near it. There is an element of truth in this. I've experienced this happen and friends and collegues have confirmed that similiar has occured with them as well. A perfectly good trap may catch 3 or 4 rats but then they will stop using it. I have tried a humane trap, the type where the rat goes in and trips a door thus trapping it inside. Sorry to upset you but I then was a little less than humane in disposing of the rat as I dropped the whole thing into a bucket of water for a day. The immersion in the water I believe washes the trap and removes anything that rats can smell on a trap and they don't treat it with any form of suspision..I did try this washing on a spring trap and have caught "extra" rats or mice.

 

[Thermo]

just about the worst thing you can do, since teh main threat from a rat is leptospirosis, which comes from their urine and is waterbourne! Hope you had some rubber gloves on.

by the way, why use a humane trap if your going to drown the poor thing? (i dont like rats but at least you could have the courage to knock it off quickly!)

 

[ladylola]

I'm well aware of the perils of weils diesease and yes precautions were taken and I washed throughly afterwards.
Really I just tried out the humane trap to see if it would work which it did very well so I have kept using it.
As to knocking it off quickly here's a story

A few years ago now I was working in an abandoned pub in Walsall. One room was clean enough to use as a site canteen which we did.One lunch time I dozed off and when I awoke my companion told me that whilist I was asleep a rat had ventured into the room. The next day we put down some crumbs and waited. By the end off the week we had five rats coming into the room. Ok said my friend now it's time for a trap. He only had a mousetrap which he baited and we sat and watched. Duely in came the lunch time hoard and we watched as the trap sprung over the nose of one rat. Only being a mousetrap it didn't have the power to kill the rat so my friend ran over and battered it to death with a shovel.
On another occasion I caught a rat with a lenght of aluminium angle. Because rats tend to follow a regular run I knew where it would run to and so I put obsiticles in its path to slow it down. That gave me the chance to spear it with the angle (I didn't plan to use the angle it was just close to hand at the time).
So you see the drowning is nothing to do with not having the courage it's simply a method whereby I don't have to deal with a live and probably ****ed off rat.