Ratting With Airrifle Help

[ryaldinhio 5,189]

I had a previous post about rats on here. I came back home after working away all year and my workshop/shed was snidded with them. They ate a load of my fishing gear and about 50kilo of boilies and pissed and shit all over everything. I set traps with chocolate, jam, peanut butter even mince pies and not a sausage. sat out with hw100 night after night from around 9-10pm till 1-3am watching baited spots and didnt see a single one yet still fresh droppings appearing in the shed. I put one pack of boilies back in the shed and first night they were into them so I set the trap with boilies and in 3 nights had 3 rats. From my limited experience I would say set the trap with what they are used to eating and they will be straight on it. I havent set them this week as I have been away again but they will be gettin reset tomorrow.

[ryaldinhio 5,189]

As a note to the above young rats shite looks like mouse shit. I was adamant I had both rats and mice (unlikely) because of the excrement i found, that was until I trapped a young one, when I moved the trap there were the really small droppings under the cage that I had previously thought were mice.

[green dragon 701]

Spot on guys they seem to enjoy a big bag of oats so I'll try them on that even tho I'm not getting any it's still nice to be out with the bsa I can't wait to get one tho

[ryaldinhio 5,189]

I used to have a perm thru a friend at a farm ratting and it was brilliant nothing better than ratting. When I go popping rabbits I take a few for the pot unless the land owner wants different. rats I could shoot all night and not pack in. I have seen rats literally fighting over a rat I have just shot, must still be warm. F****ng horrible things.

[torchey 1,328]

 

Might as well set the trap and catch straight away?

 

No Torchey rats learn very quickly indeed.

When they see another rat trapped on the first attempt of trapping you wont get another. When they see a rat trapped after say two weeks of taking food from these traps without consequences they get caught in decent numbers before they realise. Then you go onto snaring them.

 

atb

Cheers for that info, running snares and traps out on different jobs ATM if I start struggling I,ll give you a shout..

[PLEDGEY 496]

Rats are Neophobic, they don't like anything that is new. I placed 4 Fenn traps in an attic baited with my special mix, peanut butter Nutela and olive oil, and they wouldn't touch it, wouldn't even go for crispy bacon fat and that's like crack to rats. I know this because I had a trail cam set up and could watch what was going on. They would walk right up to the traps, sniff all around it then walk away. I could see exactally from the trail cam footage where they were walking and the routes they were taking across the insulation. I made a hole in the insulation and placed the Fenns in there, then covered the Fenns with a thin layer of insulation, didn't even bother with bait This worked and I eventually got them all. Like some one above said, leave the traps unset for a while if they seem to be Neophobic, they get more confident after they see others eat from there. Another good tip is if you are using normal rat traps, like big mouse traps, make sure they are fixed to the floor or to a piece of ply wood. These things will flip theirselves over and the rats can escape. Another thing you could try, and I use one in my garage, is an electronic rat trap. Baited with peanut butter the are brilliant. I bought a Victor which was expensive, but you can get cheaper ones off of Ebay, don't know what they are like though. Try the bacon fat as bait. Try and get it so it's crispy but still holds its juicyness.

[PLEDGEY 496]

Just thought of some thing else. Killgerm have just started selling a product called Racumin. It's a foam based poison in a can. You spray the foam in areas you knoe for sure that rats and mice go. It is not a bait so you don't have to worry about them eating it, it works on the fact the rats will ingest the foam when they groom themselves. The poison in the foam is Coumatetralyl. This is a first generation anticoagulant and is less toxic than second gen poisons. I know tests have been done where they fed rats this stuff until they died then fed the rats to dogs and the dogs were OK. So there shouldn't be any problem with cross contamination with non target species.

[green dragon 701]

I will have a look at that foam sound interesting but to be honest I just really want to shoot them

[jacka 32]

if theres leccy in the staticit'd be worthbaiting under a dim light for a week or so,if not a torch just brightenough to see them will work,they avoid even redlight if its bright.

if you just want to shoot a rat pm me,plenty overthis side ofthe bridge,some bigbuggers too

[green dragon 701]

Alrite jacka theres no electric pain in the arse iv got a logun red lamp it pretty dim and sits on my bsa iv allways wanted to go ratting the permission iv got is only small we get quite a few rabbits and pidgeons tho. it's really hard to get perm all the farmers around my area have got guys shooting for them