How Do You Catch A Rat?

[RichsBallPythons]

Take some canned peas, crush it into a paste then smer it all over on the trap. Rats LOVE LOVE PEAS. It will find it that night

[RobNJ]

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.

I agree, a rat that's gotten away should be put down and disposed of. I've had a few get away on me and have had great luck with kill traps. I've used bread to bait them and stuffed it in real good. I've found that rats can get bait out of the trap without setting it off if they don't have to work for it.

I'd also have a look around the edges of the room and under anything you can look under for droppings, and place your traps where you see most of them.

[Adam Chandler]

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 advice. Once I didn't even know I had an escapee until I found him drowned in the basement toilet. I don't know how he managed to get in there but sure couldn't get out.

[Redneck_Crow]

If the peas don't work for you, I've had great luck with bacon grease.

[carlisleishere]

I agree with not feeding him off. I recommend the no-bait snap traps. Just line the traps with the pads against the wall and I caught my ASF within a day. A different species, but the same problem. I reused mine too.

[MasonC2K]

Hi, this is masonc2k's wife Chanin. We caught the rat tonight!!!! I went to Lowe's today and bought larger sticky traps and clam shell like kill traps. He got caught on the larger sticky trap and the clam kill trap killed him. Hooray, no more terrorizing the guinea pigs!!

[wilomn]

I'm sort of old fashioned in my rat catching.

I take a plain old snap trap and tie a small piece of string to the trip lever. Make sure the string only goes about 1/2 inch past the end of the lever. You don't want it very long at all. Once it's tied on, BEFORE you arm the trap, coat it with peanut butter. Put it on sort of thick. When the rat is licking it off the trip lever he'll find the string and pull it, snapping the trap on his neck. That's why the string needs to be short.

Some rats are gentle enough to lick the lever clean if you don't put the string on it. If it's a particularly smart rat, put the baited trap out a few times WITHOUT arming it. Lull the rat into a false sense of security. Then when you do arm it, WHAM.

Works pretty good for me.

[Lupe]

If he has been climbing on things get a large container (bucket, garbage can, etc.), fill it with enough water so the rat cant jump out or reach the top, tape paper over it tightly, cut a T in the middle and add bait. Keep it close to something he can reach it from. When the rat goes for the bait it falls through the paper into the water, hopefully you can check on the bucket every few hours.

[mainbutter]

[adamjeffery]

i know you caught it already but i always keep a BB gun handy in the snake room. no need to be close.
adam jeffery