[Womble]

We've had good success with peanut butter. However, we smeared it around their usual runs, not in the traps first, so they knew the scent / taste of it. We also left the traps baited but not set, to encourage them to lose their fear of them.

BTW, this is the type of trap we have:



I really like the double door setup - that makes it look like a tunnel rather than a dead end, which I think helps the rats to lose their fear of it. I doubt we'll clear them all out like this, but the less poison we have to use eventually, the better.

[doganjo]

Have you decided your best disposal method then?

[doganjo]

I shoot them in my live trap or some times they escape and the dogs get them , but my mate pops the trap in a card bored box with a 3inch hole in it pops the exhaust from his 4x4 in the hole wait a few minutes and the rat just falls asleep

Any chance [member=27335]vfr400boy[/member] you could fiddle with your avatar photo so that you and your doggie are the right way up ?!  Every time I see your avatar pic I just cannot stop myself bending my head sideways - I really can't help it and it would be great if you could put me out of my neck-twisting misery!   

Here you are - now you'll recognise it and not need to look at the avatar 

[Fleecewife]

....and before someone thinks gosh that's a good idea, it's every bit as nasty as the plaster of paris murder.


My own little despatcher is currently showing his keenness by pouncing on my finger and sinking his baby teeth in, then shaking his teddy to death       Watch out rats 

[macgro7]

My own little despatcher is currently showing his keenness by pouncing on my finger and sinking his baby teeth in, then shaking his teddy to death       Watch out rats 

It sounds like my 3 yo son who says he's a baby wolf 

[doganjo]

....and before someone thinks gosh that's a good idea, it's every bit as nasty as the plaster of paris murder.


My own little despatcher is currently showing his keenness by pouncing on my finger and sinking his baby teeth in, then shaking his teddy to death       Watch out rats 

Is that humane?  I've watched one of my dogs catch a rat, play with it for five minutes before killing it.   I was yelling for her to stop but the killing instinct had kicked in.  I've seen my cat doing the same thing.

I'm not saying dogs and cats shouldn't be allowed to catch and kill vermin but is it any less inhumane?

[Fleecewife]

....and before someone thinks gosh that's a good idea, it's every bit as nasty as the plaster of paris murder.


My own little despatcher is currently showing his keenness by pouncing on my finger and sinking his baby teeth in, then shaking his teddy to death       Watch out rats 

Is that humane?  I've watched one of my dogs catch a rat, play with it for five minutes before killing it.   I was yelling for her to stop but the killing instinct had kicked in.  I've seen my cat doing the same thing.

I'm not saying dogs and cats shouldn't be allowed to catch and kill vermin but is it any less inhumane?

 A true ratter will catch, flip and kill a rat instantly.  The instinct is either there or it isn't.  My first ratter Lucy, who was a Patterdale x Cairn terrier from working ratting stock killed her first rat when it was bigger than she was and she was not much older than my new pup. She killed it instantly as above, one flip, landing over her nose, broken back and done. A dog which plays with it's prey like a cat would is not a ratter, just a dog who kills rats but not by the most effective route.
I think there are two ways to kill rats, if they must be killed (which isn't always without question the case). The first is to shoot them, first shot.  The second is with a good ratter, first flip.
So yes, I think using genuine ratters is a humane way to kill rats. I searched hard for this pup and he's shaping up fine for his future job 

[Fleecewife]

....and before someone thinks gosh that's a good idea, it's every bit as nasty as the plaster of paris murder.

Agreed, that's why I said I wasn't advocating it.  Whilst I am willing to kill them, I want the death to be as humane and natural as possible.

I'm somewhat surprised that drowning isn't in that category as, having had a couple of friends who "drowned" as children and were 'brought back', I've always understood drowning to be a calm way to go after the initial thrashing about bit.... and no, my friends didn't know each other and haven't constructed the story between them.  Both have told me that after they stopped fighting for breath and relaxed into the water, it was a serene "end".  They weren't so complimentary about the 'bringing around' process although I'm sure both were glad to have survived.

It's for that reason alone that I raised the query... and I agree plaster of Paris is another nasty way to go... so why are some methods (that let's face it are fairly natural) illegal; whilst others, which are downright cruel apparently not? 

I have seen rats die in the water buckets - which were put out for the livestock not the rats.  I've also seen rats get into a bag of sugar beet and die from the results (again, not deliberately put out for them but someone hadn't thought to put it away in the feed bin when they got back from the feed store and the rat beat them to it later the same day). 

I guess you could ask the question of how humane the sweet potato option is but - they choose to eat something that has been put out (and which the hens also peck at) and my understanding is that it turns to cyanide in their stomachs and kills them fairly quickly whilst being innocuous to other species including those that may prey on the dead rats... if that's the case, it has to be better than commercial poisons doesn't it?

I don't care if the cats scare them away or catch and kill - either is fine providing they're not here ruining the hay and bringing disease to my livestock, and potentially threatening the safety of the barn by chewing electrics etc.

Yes I know you weren't advocating it, I was just reinforcing that 

I tend to think that if things are done as they would be done in nature with no human influence then that's ok, although it's sometimes quite gruesome - think lions killing a buffalo and starting to open and eat its gut while it's still alive. It's not logical is it, just maybe that humans should know better than to be heedlessly cruel when they can use their intelligence and ingenuity to find a better way.

[arobwk]

I was hoping my little mongrel would be a good vermin dispatcher (some good terrier genes in him amongst the poodles).  Alas, he likes to play with rather than instantly dispatch which is quite distressing if he has captured a baby rabbit or field vole. He gets there in the end, but ....
I once read that dogs learn to dispatch their captured prey quicker if they have ever been bitten by their prey during a "chase". 
Any thoughts/experiences on that ??

[SallyintNorth]

Yep to your last sentence.

Most folks who work terriers work them in teams.  Young dogs will catch a rat and both grab it, the rat will bite the one that's at the head end, and they learn to dispatch instantly as a result.