Questions about rat traps/poison in rat room...

I recently built a small rat rack to put in my partially outdoor/indoor laundry room. Earlier this evening I walked out and noticed a rat scurrying off, one which wasn't mine, haha!


My question is, are there any issues with me putting traps/poison around the room to limit the exposure of other rats peeking in and stealing food?


Here are some pics of my set up:

http://i.imgur.com/1nnsJ93.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/dvTkTWJ.jpg

My first babies!!!!

http://i.imgur.com/vJjnrYI.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/UC8bENL.jpg



Thanks in advance!

Those are some pretty babies!

Unless you've got other animals that might have access to the traps/poison, or if you're worried about your own rats escaping, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to put it out.

I'd go with snap traps instead of poison just because I've read horror stories of peoples rat's escaping, getting into poison, and bringing it back to the entire colony. Plus with instant traps you know where the rat is and you can easily throw it out instead of looking all over for a dead decomposing rat lol.

I keep a couple small Have A Heart trap just incase someone gets out.

Get a husky, they are great rat catchers.

I would stick with a combination of kill traps. Check them EVERY DAY. Clean up behind/around every trap sprung/rat killed; they won't come around an area or a trap that smells of death and blood. Look for "grease slicks" along walls and edges; these are where the rats pass by most frequently and make nice trap spots. Poison is rough because you don't know where the rat will die or what animals will eat the dead poisoned rat and be poisoned themselves. Rats can also acclimate to poisons over time and I don't think you want to bother with that risk when traps can be just as effective.

I would use snap traps, electric kill traps, and/or bucket traps. Disclaimer; you'll have to evaluate your own sense of ethics and what is humane to you if you make the version of bucket traps that drowns the rat. Dry ones exist but you'll have to kill the rats by hand. Snap traps are a good standby, but a fast rats or small ones can sometimes get a butt, foot, or tail caught but not be killed. Electric traps don't tend to have that problem and are bloodless, but you can't really clean them easily if the rat voids its bowels after death. Iiiiiiiii would not personally use glue traps due to my own sense of ethics, but I feel I should still mention them because they are VERY effective. But you must be ready to kill the rat yourself; it's cruel to leave them there. If one of your domestic rats got into a glue trap you could easily release it (or any other non-target animal) with vegetable oil.

So there's your pro/cons list from my experiences. I hope you nab all the wild ones; they can mate with domestic rats no problem and domestic rats themselves have bred through cage bars...it would SUCK having to cull for genes or disease exposure.

Breeding through cage bars is a myth. The angle required for breeding is not possible through a cage wall. To mate a female arches her back up (lordosis) and the male clasps her around the middle and mates with her...it cannot be done with bars in between.

Well that's good to know. :) I guess that myth grew up from fancy rat forums, not that I can blame them for paranoia. That just leaves disease exposure and tubs can be disinfected.

To help keep your rats separated from the wild ones put up some type of barrier.

A piece of waist high plywood placed in the doorway or another easily movable object would do a lot to stop the rats from going into the rack area. This in combination with a few other of the mentioned preventative measure will help keep the wild rats away .

Wild rats in your area will smell the food as well as your domestic rats and will certainly come around, it will only be a matter of time before you will have some type problem with the domestic and wild rats mingling.