Problem with a couple escaped rats!!!!

I have 3 racks for breeding rats. After a year of filling water bottles a couple times a day I decided it was time to hook up gravity water systems and make my life a lot easier. It really has made things so much better.

Now for the problem. I had several boxes of rats boxed up to sell and a few chewed out and escaped. I have sticky traps and snap traps with peanut butter just for mishaps like this. The traps have caught nothing and the loose rats are chewing holes in the tubing and flooding my tubs!!!

I need ideas on how to catch them as well as maybe a way to make the tubing chew proof. Any thoughts or ideas are greatly appreciated!

are you sure the rats that escaped are the ones chewing your lines? normally its the ones in the tubs that get to them if they are close enough to the wire mesh or a gap in the rack..... and it sounds like you need to put the traps around your rack cause the escaped ones havent ventured very far...

This is one of my biggest fears, in fact almost every month I have at least one rat escape when I'm cleaning tubs and moving rodents from one tub to another, it happens pretty easy when you have hundreds of rodents to move. Just yesterday I had a pregnant female get out, she bolted out of the tub and got between the levels in my ARS rat breeder rack. Luckily I can stick my arms in there between the levels and trap her with my hands. I couldn't imagine what would happen if a mom and babies got in a spot where I couldn't get them and I ended up with a rat infestation in the house, OMG. When a rat gets out I drop everything and tear apart the room until I track them down.

I'd suggest getting a few live traps. I found this on Amazon, looks like I could use a few as well. I would go with the dual door model and set them up along the walls. If I ever expand to the point where I build my own rodent facility I'm going to install automatic traps all over the place.

https://www.amazon.com/AB-Traps-Pro-...pSrc=srch&th=1

Im sure it is from escaped rats. None of the tubing can be reached from inside the tubs, i took extra caution to make sure of that.

The traps are set around my racks.

Well today I caught a big female on the sticky trap.

Im sure it is from escaped rats. None of the tubing can be reached from inside the tubs, i took extra caution to make sure of that.

The traps are set around my racks.

Well today I caught a big female on the sticky trap.

Personally I don't like sticky traps, you can't really get the animal off of the trap and if you do it's going to be in a really bad mood LOL.

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

Personally I don't like sticky traps, you can't really get the animal off of the trap and if you do it's going to be in a really bad mood LOL.

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Yes you can it’s really easy.... slowly pour some rubbing alcohol on the sticky trap and it will become ineffective.... one doesn’t want to drench the rat or it will mess up the rat or even kill it

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And then let the alcohol dissipate and the trap can be reused!

That's good to know! One day I was in my garage and found a sparrow had got stuck in one of my sticky traps that I put out for wild mice. I took him out behind the house and was finally able to get him out of the trap but he couldn't fly very high. He launched straight out from my hands towards the barn and in a flash a coyote came running over and grabbed him right out of the air! It was a pretty amazing sight.

You can also use oil to get animals off glue traps. I still hate using them though.

I have one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So far it's caught every escaped rat and mouse that the snakes haven't. Can't recommend it enough. Prior to getting it I'd tried glue traps and the small plastic live catch mouse traps, but both had their issues. Nothing beats a good metal trap with the right bait.

I used to have an issue with rats escaping during cleaning. I was always able to catch them, but rats are easier to catch than mice. I know you ended up getting your escaped ones from a box you set out to sell, but cleaning was always the most opportune time for them to escape. So I made an extra "rack" when cleaning so I could easily transfer them to clean tubs....so far no escapee since.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DR...YdpjOhchZZrhLahttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1j1q...ew?usp=sharinghttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1j1qY8Gmg3CuJmo8eo_HhiSYft_nruDow/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DR2...ew?usp=sharing

I have a jack Russell who keeps escapees under control. I got tired of everything being chewed I up in the rat shed. Those little guys work great if you can’t catch the rats by other means.

I left for the weekend one month and left my nephew in charge of the animals. I came back to discover he accidentally left a tub of small rats open. Rats were everywhere. A couple had made a nest under my bed, a few in the closet, found 3 running around in the hallway, one was hopelessly trapped in the tub. Luckily I keep record of how many rats I have in each place and was able to catch them all. Let's just say it was hell lol

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Originally Posted by Tigerhawk

I have a jack Russell who keeps escapees under control....

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:gj:
I only raise a few rodents these days, but for many years I had a big operation raising rats, mice & Russian dwarf hamsters. Selling the surplus paid off, but having
one escape was NOT an option. I had a very large chain-link dog kennel (10' x 12') set up with all rodent cages inside. Back then I had four large & very attentive
dogs that surrounded the "kennel" whenever they saw me cleaning cages. If a rodent slipped out, I could usually catch it before it went thru the chain link, but alas,
my dogs were very happy to help when one got past me. Good dogs! :D