Man, the rodents are bad - help!

It seems like a banner year for mice and rats. I've never seen so many in the hog houses, bean fields, and machinery.

I have concrete feed bunks that I feed corn out of for one pasture of cattle. The rats will nearly carry you away over there. The cattle can't get to the back side of the bunks - it is a drive alley. What do you all do for setups like that? I want to shove bait under there but I know the dogs will be able to get at it if one of those rats shoves it closer to the edge. I've got to do something. I was thinking of shoving the bar bait down their hole. Would they leave it in there? Would they even eat bait since there is a daily supply of corn?

One of our neighbors told me years ago that the way to get rid of rats is to shoot one or trap it, and then burn the corpse next to where the rest of the rats live and the smell will make them leave. I never tried it myself so I can't comment on how well it may work.
Zach

2" pvc tube about 15" long, one cap jammed on the one side with a hole drilled in it about 1.5 inches for rat. I use 1" for voles. The other end, use a belt sander and sand down about 2" of the end so that the other cap fits easily. Drill a hole through the cap and pvc pipe so that you can run a wire through it. fill with poison blocks, put the drilled cap back on and wire it so that the end cap doesn't come off. Put it somewhere where you can wire it to something.
The problem with rats as I see it, the larger hole, 1.5" may allow the poison block to fall out.
the other thing you an do is get a 5 gallon pail, fill it half way with water and put a dowel through the top and a metal sleeve. Use peanut butter for bait. Make a little ladder for them to climb up , walk out on the sleeve to the bait, the sleeve turns, and dumps them in the water, they drown.
rat pail trap

Take two foot long pieces of 4 inch pipe. Drill some small 1/8 inch holes across from each other towards the middle. Take a bait blocks (ones with a hole in the middle) and put them inside the pipe. Then take a piece of brace wire about 8 inches long, put it through the holes with the bait bars in the middle. The wires hold the bait inside the pipe so the dogs can't get to it. Lay the pipe along the base of the feeders. The mice/rats can easily get in the pipe to eat the bait.

I have used these type for years. They work and are simple to make. The pipe protects the bait from pets and rain. You need to rotate brand of bait as it keeps the mice/rats coming back.

Another type of bait station I make is to take a five gallon bucket with a lid. Use a hole saw and put four 1 1/2inch holes around the base about two inches up. Then you set it flat with a brick for weight and bait inside the bucket. Then put the id on to keep water out. I use the small bait packs inside these type as some mice/rats don't eat the blocks as well. WACTH out that your dog does not roll the bucket around to get to the bait. I some times put a concrete block on top of them to keep the bucket secure.

There are two cheap homemade bait stations that work.

I bought these off the web. I have smaller stations for mice and larger stations for rats. Google rat bait stations.

My friend made a killing bucket. With a 5 gal bucket put a small hole through the top of the bucket on each side that will hold a small stiff rod. Then find a can maybe a coke can. put a hole in the center at each end. Put the rod through the can, then through the hole in the bucket. Now the can spins on the shaft mounted high on the bucket. . Put peanut butter on the can in several places. them make a bridge to the can, leaving enough space so the rodent has to reach or jump on the can. The can will turn, dropping the thing into water in the bottom of the pail, and drown. Sounds mean, but no different than having your insides fall apart. from poison. My friend sais it really works. I have not tried it. Stan

I have tried this and it works great, here in Michigan we use anti-freeze to keep from freezing in the winter, its in my pole barn and no pets around so no problem.

My Dad bought a farm in the 1930's that had so many rats that he used a 50-gallon barrel with a lid on a rod that would dump the rats into the water. He hated it when the barrel got full and he had to clean it out!

Someone gave him a Rat Terrier that he would leave inside the barn at night. Apparently the dog could only see the white rats in the dark because those were the only ones that he killed.

Dad also put out trays of corn meal mixed with plaster and dishes of water. The resulting constipated rats would squeel so much that many of the rats left and went to the neighbors. He eventually got rid of all the rats.

Up north we put used anti-freeze or oil in the bucket, water will freeze. Have had mixed luck with these, getting the ramp spacing right is important.

I thought they were all at my place. Don't think I've seen it this bad in a long time.
When I milked cows,I had a pest control service come every month. What seemed to work well was to use the small bait bags. They'd carry those back to the nest and all of the little ones would get a dose too.

I've battled rats for years around my barn due to the ear corn I have and I very much doubt you will be able to poison them unless you can remove all feed which doesn't sound possible. Seems like they will only eat poison when there is nothing else around.They do have to drink water no matter what so some of the ideas below concerning water seems like they could work. If you have a lot of rodents outside in one place I'm surprised foxes and coyotes haven't found them.

We never had more than an occasional rat on the farm when I was growing up.

The summer of 1972 was rainy, we never got in a single bale of hay that wasn't rained on. The next winter we got a truckload of grain through some sort of government aid program.

I don't know if the rats were delivered with the grain, or if they followed the truck up the road, but all of a sudden we were overrun with them.

We tried all the usual remedies, plaster and cornmeal, De-Con, shooting, but they kept getting worse.

One morning I went to the barn to do chores, and I saw a white weasel slinking along the cellar wall. Within a week there wasn't a rat to be found anywhere. The weasel must have gotten a bunch of them, and the rest got the heck out of Dodge.

One guy I know had a problem with rats under his concrete bunks. Took the anhydrous tank to the holes and opened the valve with the hose shoved in there holes. The ones that did make it out he hit with a shovel. No more rats.

Get yourself a Jack Russell Terrier. They are relentless on rodents. Very smart dogs

I remember when I was a kid the neighbor tried the setting one on fire to drive rats out, he got one, doused in lighter fluid and set on fire, it came back to life, ran into barn, burned down barn, and drove all the rats out. Rebuilt barn, and about 2 years later the kids were trying to smoke in there, you guessed it, they burned the barn down again. He quit raising cattle, and kids.