Rat on board suggestions please

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pcatterall

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Yes the four legged ones. All food is in bins so its taken to eating the wiring!!
Traps seem favourite with poison as a last resort. Has anyone tried the electronic detergents or the sticky pads?
Any other advice welcome. Potentially dangerous damage to wiring. Not so bad where I can see the damaged bits.
Help!!
 
OK. First off, get a modern plastic rat trap. These are a new model which has the bait under the lethal trap so that the little thing can't get at the bait without triggering the trap: search on eBay for plastic rat trap. If the thing is too urgent to wait for an eBay delivery, go to the local B&Q: they sell older type lethal rat traps.
Next, clear out a locker space so that there's a nice safe space for the rat. Note, this needs to be a locker space that the rat can easily get to..... Set and bait the trap with peanut butter, just a smear of the stuff is all that's needed, and place the trap in the locker space. Now leave the boat for a couple of hours. Come back and with a bit of luck, one dead rat.
The idea is that you place the trap in a rat friendly space, not in the open. Then you bait it with some thing that rats seem to find irresistible. Finally, you leave the rat in peace to move about and find the food so helpfully left for them. Result, no more rat.
 
duncan99210 said:
OK. First off, get a modern plastic rat trap. These are a new model which has the bait under the lethal trap so that the little thing can't get at the bait without triggering the trap: search on eBay for plastic rat trap. If the thing is too urgent to wait for an eBay delivery, go to the local B&Q: they sell older type lethal rat traps.
Next, clear out a locker space so that there's a nice safe space for the rat. Note, this needs to be a locker space that the rat can easily get to..... Set and bait the trap with peanut butter, just a smear of the stuff is all that's needed, and place the trap in the locker space. Now leave the boat for a couple of hours. Come back and with a bit of luck, one dead rat.
The idea is that you place the trap in a rat friendly space, not in the open. Then you bait it with some thing that rats seem to find irresistible. Finally, you leave the rat in peace to move about and find the food so helpfully left for them. Result, no more rat.
Click to expand...

+1 been there got the T Shirt

If it takes longer to get the bugger, get some modern mothballs which come in plastic cartridges. Place them in and around the wiring, they hate the smell. You won't get rid of it with this but it might save your wiring until the above is successful.
 
Rats are very, very clever. I have been battling with them all my life as I live in the country and keep poultry. They will only come onto a boat for food so make sure evrything edible including waste is in an airtight container so they can't smell it. Rats are very suspicious of traps so you may have to bait an unset trap for a few days so they get used to it. If you resort to poison, they will take several doses to die so make sure you keep the poison topped up. The worst part is that they go off to a secret place to die, which means they decompose and smell. Many times I have had to turn out the complete contents of a garage or shed to find a stinking corpse. Best not to give them the excuse to come on board in the first place!
 
duncan99210 said:
OK. First off, get a modern plastic rat trap. These are a new model which has the bait under the lethal trap so that the little thing can't get at the bait without triggering the trap: search on eBay for plastic rat trap. If the thing is too urgent to wait for an eBay delivery, go to the local B&Q: they sell older type lethal rat traps.
Next, clear out a locker space so that there's a nice safe space for the rat. Note, this needs to be a locker space that the rat can easily get to..... Set and bait the trap with peanut butter, just a smear of the stuff is all that's needed, and place the trap in the locker space. Now leave the boat for a couple of hours. Come back and with a bit of luck, one dead rat.
The idea is that you place the trap in a rat friendly space, not in the open. Then you bait it with some thing that rats seem to find irresistible. Finally, you leave the rat in peace to move about and find the food so helpfully left for them. Result, no more rat.
Click to expand...

Another +1, although a few hours is a bit quick.

Or.. connect all wiring to 240V and bypass the RCD, that'll teach the bugger to eat wires [not a terribly serious idea btw.]
 
salar said:
Rats are very, very clever. I have been battling with them all my life as I live in the country and keep poultry. They will only come onto a boat for food so make sure evrything edible including waste is in an airtight container so they can't smell it. Rats are very suspicious of traps so you may have to bait an unset trap for a few days so they get used to it. If you resort to poison, they will take several doses to die so make sure you keep the poison topped up. The worst part is that they go off to a secret place to die, which means they decompose and smell. Many times I have had to turn out the complete contents of a garage or shed to find a stinking corpse. Best not to give them the excuse to come on board in the first place!
Click to expand...

+1 about them going off to die in inaccessible places. We had that at work once; a terrible smell built up in an open hall way; it wasn't the usual culprit of over-ripe sandwiches at the back of a drawer. Investigation showed that a mouse or rat (don't know which) had died in the ceiling space.
 
Thedreamoneday said:
What about borrowing a cat?

Serious reply and quicker than a trap being sent in the post!
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An average cat dumped into a strange place will be nervous and not too interested in hunting for a while. It will be more thinking about getting home to it's territory... The rat will just hide and stay still.

Non-lethal trap sounds good. No need to kill the rat in this situation/case - just get it off the boat.

The point about making sure there is nothing in the open to attract it, or it's friends, back on to the boat.... +1
 
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Had a mouse on board conventional mouse trap with Mars bar eliminated it.

Advantage with conventional traps are the corpse is removable and doesn't die in a secret place to smell. Disadvantage is you have to dispose of the corpse!

Thread is a reminder to reset all the traps in the garages and house as this is the time of year that the mice come in from the cold.
What do you find the most attractive bait to be? So far I have used Mars bar successfully. Unfortunately I have an even bigger mouse the eats the remainder of the Mars bar in the fridge - called 1st officer!
 
I don't know if this would work or not but could you fill he boat with exhaust gas to kill it?
Its got to be got rid off quickly before it starts doing damage.
 
graham said:
I don't know if this would work or not but could you fill he boat with exhaust gas to kill it?
Its got to be got rid off quickly before it starts doing damage.
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Well, that would work - fumigation is a well-established method of eradicating rats and other nasties. But you still have to find the bodies!

Incidentally, if you've got one rat, I'd be concerned that you probably have several...
 
salar said:
They will only come onto a boat for food so make sure evrything edible including waste is in an airtight container so they can't smell it.
Click to expand...

Although that is true in the first instance, as you say, rats are cunning little devils and they know from experience that there might well be food on a boat so, even if you have none left out within smelling range, they will still come aboard to look for it and may well find a packet of something which they can chew open.

I have experienced a mass attack from the infamous rats of Meganisi and they come out to the anchored boats along the shore lines on scavenging expeditions even if you leave nothing out. :(

Richard
 
pcatterall said:
Yes the four legged ones. All food is in bins so its taken to eating the wiring!!
Traps seem favourite with poison as a last resort. Has anyone tried the electronic detergents or the sticky pads?
Any other advice welcome. Potentially dangerous damage to wiring. Not so bad where I can see the damaged bits.
Help!!
Click to expand...

A few tips from a poultry keeping Yottie:
1. Cats are fairly useless with rats. Terriers who know what to do will be a better bet, but they will like to burrow to get them; but on a boat? Not sure that's a goer.
2. Peanut butter is good bait, especially in a 'cage' trap as they can see and smell it from all directions and then find their way in.
3. Once in the cage type trap a quick swimming lesson is required. Dunk the whole thing for ten minutes. Quick, painless and you don't have to worry about blood, snot and guts that sometimes accompanies spring traps.
4. Top tip is wear gloves when handling traps as the rat will smell 'humans' from the sweat on your fingers and be wary.
5. Not sure about the wiring. They like small confined spaces as mentioned by previous poster. To save the wiring the only way is to kill the little blighter asap.
Good Luck!
 
Thanks for all the useful tips..Been out in downtown Cagliari and gothold of an old fashioned metal trap and two smaller plastic ready baited ones plus some poison as a very last resort. Investigating the wiring it looks like they are eating it mainly to get access through the very small cable holes. It has also tried to widen the finger holes in the sole boards.
Thanks again.
 
Once had a pest control guy in to sort out an unwanted rodent in my flat. He explained everything he did - the secret to success is where you place the trap. They don't like eating in exposed places so you need to cover the trap, or put it somewhere out of the way. They also tend to stick to edges, so putting it against something, preferably on an obvious route will also help.

Secondly, they wee all the time. So make sure you wipe all the surfaces with a detergent, especially food surfaces.

The sticky pads are generally not recommended. They have been known to gnaw their own legs off to escape. I also looked after a Cairn terrier once, and boy did that thing go for mice and rats. Seemed to have extraordinary night sight as well. Only drawback is when they catch the thing. It gets smashed against the floor and shaken all over the place until there's not much rat left to identify, except for the bits all over the dog and the surroundings. Effective outdoors, but a bit messy outdoors.

Cats are a complete waste of time and best left for mad old spinsters to pamper...
 
Find somebody with a good ratting terrier. Their noses are 10000 times more sensitive than ours. it will locate it for you. The trick might be removing floorboards etc to get at it. if you can corner it somewhere that the terrier can get to it will dispatch it. There is no point in borrowing a terrier that isn't used to ratting as it wont know what to do. A good ratter will sort it out.
 
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