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You do not necessarily need to resort to rat trapping or rat poison to carry out rat control. Keeping them away from your home by trying natural methods
November 26, 2021
15 min read time
This information is reviewed by an independent pest control expert.
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Rats are one of the most common rodents that live with humans. They always find the smallest reason to find their way into our surroundings even when they are least welcome.
The presence of rats or mice is frustrating – they nibble your food, release their droppings, and urinate around your home.
The latter is especially dangerous since ingestion of dried rat urine can cause infections such as leptospirosis. This makes them a dangerous pest; one that needs to be eliminated immediately especially if you live with pets and small children.
Safe to assume you’re experiencing a rat infestation since you’re reading this post.
Well, it is about time you learned the effective ways to catch rats and other rodents. This is exactly what this article will provide you with.
Before we proceed, let’s discuss what rats look like, their reproduction, and feeding habit.
Table of Contents
Understanding what rats look like, their reproduction, and what they need to survive could help you easily control this rodent.
So here are the basic things you need to know.
Rats are popular rodents that are between 9 to 11 inches long. Male rats are generally bigger than female rats. They have chewing mouthpart, a tail, and hair on their body which comes in varying colors and patterns owing to their breeding.
The most common ones are black, brown, gray, tan, and white. Other exotic colors include siamese, silver black, blue, cinnamon pearl, lilac, etc.
Nonetheless, there are also hairless and tailless rats that are born without furs or a tail respectively.
In many cases, female rats can mate up to 500 times in six hours. And brown rats can give birth to over 2,000 babies within a year. A single litter can consist of 22 young ones.
Because rats have a gestation period that is typically less than one month, they can reproduce so rapidly and this can easily get out of control.
Once the rat population starts growing within your house, you will notice increased damage and droppings, which is why you need to control them early.
All homeowners must understand that rats (whether Norway rats or roof rats) need 3 things to thrive.
These includes:
Rats are omnivorous pests which imply that these critters can eat anything that they see. Typically, rats consume trash and left-over food. And in the absence of this, they hunt their own prey and feed on other animals like birds and lizards.
As unbelievable as it sounds, rats also take water.
However, they can go for a month without it. This is because they find enough water in the food they eat. When the need arises for them to consume water, they often find enough in the drains, and pipes within the walls.
Rats find a safe place where they can hide or nest.
In the wild, these critters seek shelter in grasses, weeds, and other plants. Within the house, they often hide behind the walls, under the furniture, or in dark corners of areas that are rarely used within the house. Many of them also make their nests inside or under appliances.
Now that you know the 3 essential things rats survive on, you can easily control the rodent population within your by destroying their shelter, food, and water source.
As we mentioned earlier, rats and mice are not just frustrating to have around, their presence can be dangerous to human health. As such, it is only natural to want to keep them away from your property.
Fortunately, there are many pest methods for this rodent control.
Let’s quickly go over the best ones:
Instinctively, rats make use of fences and walls as their guides.
This makes them highly unlikely to roam around at the center of your yard or room. As a result, you can set snap traps to catch them. To make this method effective, you should place rat traps close to the wall or along any other part, they walk on.
If you wish to increase the chances of catching rats with snap traps, you can place these rat traps inside your closet, alongside your furniture, which could include chairs, sofas, among others.
A smart way to go about this rodent control method is to lure it into snap traps by cutting a hole on each side of a shoebox and setting this along a suspected path of these critters.
This prompts the rats to enter. Once they enter, they become entrapped and won’t be able to get out.
One of the most effective means that can help to catch a rat is to bait the snap traps with the rat’s diet.
However, you must understand that different mouse species are attracted to different kinds of food. So, the bait you will use in the rat traps during your pest control depends on the kind you’re dealing with.
Black rats, for instance, are herbivorous so it is drawn to peanut butter. In contrast, brown rats are omnivorous and they find smelly cheese irresistible.
Irrespective of the species you are dealing with, ensure that the diet you use gives out a strong smell so they can easily lure the rodent into the rat traps.
These rodents are simply not as stupid and naive as most people would regard them to be. In many cases, a rat gets suspicious when they see a new object in the environment. For this reason, your rat traps could fail to trap rats – or mice – if introduced the wrong way.
How then do you set your trap?
It is simple.
Anytime you want to use the trapping method, your first duty is to accustom the rat to trap before setting them.
As such, if you want to introduce a rat trap, ensure that you place the trap in an active area without setting it. Then, ensure that these pests (Norway rats and roof rats) feed off it. Next, keep an eye out to observe if the trap is not scaring the rodent away.
Once you ascertain this, you can proceed to bait the snap trap with the right diet and set it along their path.
An adult rat that grows up to 9 to 11 inches requires a snap trap that is bigger than its size to trap it effectively.
Unfortunately, most homeowners do not know the difference between a mouse and a rat. This makes it hard for them to differentiate between the type of infestation they are facing and the kind of trap to use.
A mouse has an average length that ranges from 2.5 to 4 inches.
Before you can choose the best rat traps to carry out pest control, it is imperative that you know if you are dealing with a mouse or a rat. For instance, while the paw print of a brown rat is about 20mm wide, that of a mouse is typically under 10mm in width.
Besides this, rat droppings are about the size of a pumpkin seed. On the contrary, mice droppings have a size that is similar to that of a sunflower kernel. You should also know that while rats and mice both find shelter inside homes, the former is also active outdoors.
You might be interested in the following article
Rats and mice are unwelcome visitors to homes.
Besides the fact that they are unpleasant to look at, they give off an unwanted odor and carry diseases that can pose a significant threat to the health of homeowners, children, and pets.
They can also be very destructive: they can chew cables and gnaw at furniture and walls. Even though they naturally choose not to leave, there are several options you can employ that can either annihilate, trap, or repel them from your home.
They include luring these critters with the food they find irresistible like peanut butter, fish, meat, and cookies
If you would rather go with trapping the rats ( roof rat or a Norway rat), we have discussed how to safely go about this in the post.
Moreover, you can get rid of these critters from your home effectively and safely by removing the basic things they need for survival. We hope this article was helpful.
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