nov 5 2022 

This rat story is winding into 4 parts---- today is the hiatus between infestations during which every so often i would get inspired to dig up some fact about rats.

Like.... Boston is the 13th most rat infested city in the United states---- I spoke with several people who could be considered rat experts on an intellectual level.... one of them said that anyone in suburbia with a bird feeder probably had a few rats... another one from the Farm Bureau said they did not know of a farm that was devoid of rats...\one problem is rats can eat anything. And are intelligent... add the  problem  of  prolific..  And another very significant problem is the fact that all of those Problems are very evident in wild boar ----or in other words ---- the big pig population

 

I witnessed that first hand in Florida add Disney World ideal community. the only reason I was in the ideal community was someone was giving hour long tours on Segway things ----you know that little platform you stand on with two wheels that carries you around ----and I wanted to ride around on one and see what it was like.. in that process we went past a lovely garden and I said to the guide what are they doing? replanting new bulbs. ?  .. and he clearly said no it's the pigs -------quite clearly something had done a whale of a job rototilling a  rather extensive/ expensive garden... so I read up on that a little bit and found that there are a lot of things outlawed in Texas but any hour of the day  or night you are allowed / encouraged....to shoot these pigs -----they do many millions of dollars worth of damage to both crops and livestock.. .... they are slowly moving northward...  Tennessee—per the internmet. Has them in 80  of 96 counties... words like eradicate invasive species ----are used with regard to these huge rats. that topic is worth reading about.  Wisconsin is worried--- -that's pretty far north.

 

so back to a normal rat.... we have Internet cameras on us 24 hours a day as part of. explore.org..  and their  never stop learning program,   and as I would notice we had a rat or two. these hundreds of people who watch our cameras.. would write to me and tell me of some weird way of killing rats------ and there were some weird ways.. one of the favorites is a seesaw arrangement into a bucket of water.. we had a lot of suggestions..  I have tried an awful lot of them and still find that victor snaptrap. is pretty efficient---  it doesn't involve any poison so therefore these lovely fat rats that I was trapping.. could be put in a plastic bag and quickly put in the freezer of our cabin..  to be delivered by the Frozen Rodent Delivery Company..  (ME) ---to some people in the area rehabilitating Raptors---owls and Hawks and things like snakes...

 

during this time. I also put out sample foods--- to try and figure out what was their preferred meal... peanut butter-- cooked or raw bacon, oatmeal,, butter,, sugar.  I set out dishes and pretty much determined they would eat anything, but I could not come up with a “preferred”.

I also determined that if they chewed a hole in the house and I blocked it, they would simply chew another hole   So I found that  instead of blocking the hole, I would use that to determine their path, and set traps there.

we also adopted a Jack Russell  terrior which a friend found in the walmart parking lot in north carolina--WANDA--- became her name.. We explained to her that since she was now a member of our tribe she was supposed to work.... and she did.. she caught one rat.. which she tne carried around. it took us a few days to get the trophy from her,, she could bite,, big time-- but we finally did.. and she never caught another...

 

I also found that we don’t begin to know what rats will eat..... because as I was training  dogs in the huge hardware stores---- lowes and home depot---- the dogs would tell me there were live critters in the  aisles  with the nuts  and bolts.  Maybe they found the glue of the cardboard boxes addictive??? Who knows?

 

To be continued.....