I’d think an alligator trap would be too big for rats…
The Tomcat traps are a little different from the defective Victor plastic ones, but it sounds like people have had problems with those too not killing the rat. The classic wood snap traps have don’t usually suffer from this, the issue with them is getting them set without trapping your fingers.
I went to his channel, what he calls"big rats" are what we call “rats” in Honolulu. The trap in the linked video is interesting.
We haven’t had a rat problem in the Bodega Bay house, but someone in the neighborhood was poisoning rats last summer and the corpses were ending up in our yard. We decided to bury them before the hawks and foxes could get to them.
I had problems with the old fashioned snap traps not killing the rat at about the same rate as the T-rex. It’s more about bait imo. If you are after a rat eating a specific food or still going after pb then you get a good kill with either. If the trap is going after rats that are just walking along a wall and is unbaited then it’s more likely that you won’t get a clean kill.
No, it is about the strength of the spring. In my case - and several of the cases reported by others, at least for the Victor trap - the crossbar was square across the neck of the rat, who was nevertheless still walking around. I think they use a relatively weak spring so that the trap can be set without much effort by pushing down from behind.
The wood ones with the yellow plastic trigger also have some problems, in that they are too sensitive and the rat can sometimes trigger it before he gets in trapping range, but that is better than having to hand-kill a trapped rat.
There is no problem with strength for the T-Rex ones. It’ll even kill with a body strike. IDK about the Victor ones. I’ve never had a head strike fail with the Trapper.
But you have two posts above where you discuss secondary measures for finishing off the rat. Sorry, the T-Rex (which looks to be the same trap as the Tomcat) might be the bees knees, but after my Victor experience and reading reviews of other traps I’m sticking to to all-wood/metal spring traps (and my zap traps, which have never given me an injured rat).
I have to say, though, the Goodnature trap referenced above is really calling out to me:
They roam my California suburban yard in the evening too. Cute, smart, don’t harm a soul. Basically nighttime squirrels without furry tails. I agree that if they enter the house, no mercy. But outside? C’mon, have a heart!
It depends on gauge and profile. They’ll go through 00 steel wool like candy, but that heavy sharp ribbon stuff works OK as long as the rodents aren’t strongly motivated. If you want to keep them out of a corn crib you’ll want “rat-stop” - sharp broken glass embedded in mortar.
I don’t use poison because it’s too indiscriminately effective; people trying to kill rats with poison do more harm than anti-vaxxers, and we know how people feel about them.
I think the best defense against rodents is targeted, intelligent murder - in the form of a little rat dog or a good feline mouser. I miss my mighty mouser deeply, she was a beloved friend and an unbelievably tidy and efficient murderess.
That’s great until Nemo (or another lovely scavenger) decides to eat one that just died. Stick to physical traps. My local animal control officer goes with a 2 step process - a have-a-heart trap followed by a 5 gallon bucket with an airtight lid. I think he puts something in the bucket with them (dry ice would work well) so there’s no pain on their side or his.
Steel wool 100%, brass wool even better. I vote for hosting some Jack Russels or another rat terrier to hang with Nemo for a bit. Maybe a new forever friend?
My rats don’t take bait. So I have to put the traps along paths that they travel and hope they walk through the trap. I got sick of having to dispatch rats that the wood traps would only catch a tail or hind leg. They would drag the traps into the landscape. It was a mess.
I tried to convince myself that they are just squirrels with bald tails, but it didn’t work. The problem with them as opposed to squirrels is that they proliferate at a much larger rate; more and larger litters.
No snakes in my area that I’ve seen; this is right in Toronto, and I’ve never even seen a garter snake.
Hawks, yes, and they have been seen preying on rats, but they haven’t made a dent in the population.
I’ve had the electrocution traps recommended by other people.
Tent the woodshed and run a garden hose from your car’s exhaust for a few hours - the carbon monoxide will kill the nestlings and any adults in the shed.
