How Do You Catch A Rat?

[MasonC2K]

So a few weeks back one of my feeder rats escaped when I wasn't paying attention. He is confined to the animal room but they are lots of places to hide. When to try to actively hunt him, he is just way to fast. He can be across the room in a flash. So we've resorted to using traps. We've tried sticky traps and kills traps.

The sticky traps he gets caught on but he always managed to drag in half way across the romm, get it hung on something else and pull himself free. I've witnessed this myself. I thought "Yay! We got him!" and then he'd get away. So now he completey avoids them.

The kill traps are baited with peanut butter which I was told was the best to use and he just doesn't go near them.

It's getting stressful now because he is scaring the guinea pigs and stealing their food and has chewed a wire.

I don't want to use poison because I don't want him to die somewhere we can reach and start stinking up the place.

So any advice on how to catch/kill a wayward rat?

Thanks.

[cmack91]

i'd keep trying the peanut butter, he should go for it eventually, or try some kind of flavored oatmeal, ive heard of that being effective

[jjmitchell]

The odd chances a feeder rat gets away, my cat usually brings it back to me... most of the time still alive... sorry I am not much help

[Xotik]

You can also try Dog/cat canned food. I don't think I've ever seen anything work as effectively.

Also - if this is a common occurrence, you could get a hav-a-heart trap, that way, you still have a live animal at the end that you can still feed off.

[Tereghan]

A cat on a leash? LOL. Actually tried that with one of my escaped pet rats and our younger cat found the general area he was in.

If he's climbing into other cages then maybe set up and easy to get into empty cage with food and whatnot and see if he ends up back in it. If you can shut him in it, cool. If the food goes missing, try putting one of the traps in next to the food dish. Other than that some places have kill traps which actually electrocute the rat/mouse, no escaping from those.

[KatStoverReptiles]

Set one of your snakes free in the room?

Sorry...that's absolutely no help but it was my 1st thought. Kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of the rat and feed your snake!

Have you tried maybe herding him into a large cardboard box turned on its side? Then once he's in just tip it right-ways up?

[Adam Chandler]

Also - if this is a common occurrence, you could get a hav-a-heart trap, that way, you still have a live animal at the end that you can still feed off.

Good luck catching your misplaced rat. However if you do get him back alive I would NOT feed him off or put him back with other rats. You have no idea what he has been eating or running through. It could hurt your BP's or contaminate the other rats.

[MasonC2K]

If I catch him alive he's gonna die. My wife is very insistant on the matter. And at this point since I've had to spend money replacing a chewed wire I don't mind doing so.

I've read of those electric traps but they are like $50-$60. But I may be willing to spend that if we can't find another way.

[wolfy-hound]

Try a bucket? He might come to a water source rather than food. The way I finally caught a escaped ASF was in a 1/3 full pitcher of water, but they're smaller. If you can put a 5g bucket where he can get to the top rim, he might fall in and not be able to get back out(if it's empty, he can jump out, but with the water, he has nothing to push off of to jump).

Good luck, and I second the "Don't feed it to anything or put it back with your feeder rats". Never can tell what he's eaten or touched. Even the residue from the sticky traps might be harmful.

[Highline Reptiles South]

i offered my 3 kids 20 bucks to the first one that caught one last time that happened. You cannot underestimate the wife factor during one of these occurrences