Saturday, July 12, 2014

This Can't End Well

My workshop is about 150 feet from the ocean and is a natural refuge for the Norway Rats who frequent the rocks on the beach. They come up periodically looking for an easy handout like our stash of bird seed and/or to poop all over the floor. I employ some countermeasures to this rodent invasion, one of which is a couple of huge peanut butter baited rat traps. These are huge traps, the kind that could easily break a finger if a person were careless when setting it.

Yesterday I was checking the trap line and discovered some rat poop on the workshop floor. This warranted a  closer inspection which showed the trap near the bird seed bucket to be missing altogether. I guess a rat sprung the trap but it did not hit anything vital (like it's neck) but may have caught his tail or maybe a leg. Oh boy! Where is it? Where did it drag the trap off to? I checked under my power saws, work bench and in the wood pile but no luck. I guess it is possible I left the door open for a while and the rat entered, got trapped and left through the door. I prefer this scenario to the one where he is still somewhere in the shop, dead or dying and getting ready to stink and attract flies. Norma wants me to check around the yard but really, I do not want to find it. I set a new trap and this time screwed it to the floor. Maybe the same rat will drag the old trap back and get caught again in the new one. I have lots of peanut butter.


8 comments:

  1. They didn't think the shark could go under with three barrels > cue the music from Jaws < .
    I can see that rat dragging off the trap screwed to the floor.

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    1. I had visions of that myself! I had another one caught but not dead. It was rolling around the floor, attached to the trap. I gritted my teeth, picked up the trap with Norma's branch trimming cutters (longest handled tool I could find) and drowned it in a bucket of water. Not a pleasant day.

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  2. Nope. Nothing good coming outta this...

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  3. what is it with you first deer now rats what next elephants???When you next go to walmart to buy apples for the deer buy some crunchy peanut butter for the rats!!!!!! Hope you get to watchthe gametomorrow i am rooting for Aregentina cheers les

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  4. Not a nice job to have that's for sure! Good luck!

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  5. You could google ``homemade rat trap bucket`` for variations of traps that work to contain the mice or rats after they take the bait. These are very handy for places where you do not have to check the traps on a daily basis. The clean up is very easy also. We have used them in cottages and hunt camps. The buckets sometime have quite a few takers of the peanut butter.

    For the missing body, I remember as a kid, with friends, shooting rats at the dump . We would be quiet after nailing one and eventually other rats would emerge to drag the body away.

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