How can I get rid of rats in yard without killing my dogs?
| [5:03:31 PM] John shelton: |
I have 5 dogs and a hugh back yard. I believe rats have tunneled under my wood shed and are living there. My dogs are always chasing them at night. I’m afraid to go into my own back yard. If I use rat poison, the rats will die, and the dogs will eat the rats and die.
You could use something called a live trap, it’ll catch the rats alive. You can release them away from your home and it won’t harm your dogs at all. If you’re too scared of the rats to do this then ask someone else to do it for you.
There are products available that you can buy that smell like foxes or coyotes: http://www.pestproducts.com/fox_urine.htm
These pose no harm to your dogs (except they might be curious about the scent) and also don't harm the rodents, but encourage them to build their nest elsewhere (they naturally will choose to move since they don't want to nest cloe to a predator).
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A good friend of mine was able to rid her garage of a nest of squirrels with this type of product.
Comment by Stephanie H — September 26, 2006 @ 8:03 am
can you stand another dog? get yourself a scottish terrior and your rat problems will go away. i had one, moved in with a girlfriend who had two cats and a couple dozen mice running all over the house. the cats were lazy but angus cleaned house in less that a week. drug home a few possums too.
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Comment by bastardinalabama — September 26, 2006 @ 8:03 am
We tried the rat poison too and almost killed the dog. We use good old fashioned rat traps. Big mouse traps. We also have used an electronic rat trap that zaps them when they go inside. It cost about $50.00 but did work. We had rats so bad that one night we went out and turned on the light and saw 9 scatter. We got it down pretty good now. We only get rats when the new babies start coming down from the nest. You will never get rid of them totally but you can keep the population down. We live in San Diego County and we have a vector tax to help control the rats.
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Comment by insanediego22001 — September 26, 2006 @ 8:04 am
Chain up the dogs for a while, use rat poison, throw it down the holes. Or loan the dogs to someone for a while…
Or, use traps, humane or not, but figure out what to do with live rats before you decide if you want to be humane with something that can find it's way back & reproduces like rabbits…
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Comment by fairly smart — September 26, 2006 @ 8:08 am
If you just want to run them off throw moth crystals under shed,in the shed . I have never known a dog to eat moth balls or crystals. We use them on our farm for snakes. Not to kill just to drive out of certain areas However I don't know why you would want to just run them off,they are diseased carrying rodents that not only could make you or your family very ill but could kill your dogs. If nothing else invest in a rodent controll exterminator. Maybe your city has someone that will do this if you are inside city limits.
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Comment by crrankin22 — September 26, 2006 @ 8:21 am
You could use something called a live trap, it'll catch the rats alive. You can release them away from your home and it won't harm your dogs at all. If you're too scared of the rats to do this then ask someone else to do it for you.
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Comment by Animal Lover and Owner — September 26, 2006 @ 8:39 am