I've Got Roof Rats !!!!

[Bob_Roller]

I'm not fond of using poisons either, I found a rat on the driveway this morning, looks like in his death throes, on the concrete tile roof, he fell off sometime last night .

The extermination company placed 15 spring type rat traps on the roof last Friday, not one has been tripped so far .

[Justin B.]

When I worked for AST Research we had roof rats real bad at the manufacturing facility and the exterminators used traps baited with slices of grapefruit.  It seems the little buggers just love grapefruit and sometimes you could hear 'em snapping only minutes after they were unloaded and re-baited!

[Bob_Roller]

They love citrus fruit, you can walk around the neighborhood here when the fruit is ripe, around mid December to the end of January, and see the fruit that was eaten while still on the tree .

With the temperatures being so high here this time of year, they need to use a prepared bait in the trap, made of cheese and peanut butter .

Once the fruit goes away, their next favorite food is dry dog food left outside, that is what is recommended used for bait for use in a lot of electric type traps .

[Altritter]

Montmil: < I off the squirrels that raid our bird feeders with a .177 pellet rifle and a small scope. >

+1, Monte! I've concluded that a pellet gun, while unlawful in many jurisdictions, is a better alternative than a .22. Depending upon the statutory definition of a "firearm" in your jurisdiction, getting caught plinking with a pellgun isn't as serious an offense as crittering with a powder weapon. When I ease up on feeding my R65 habit, I intend to begin researching precision air rifles to control (or at least bother) the rodents (some as big as 150 pounds) that are making spouse's veggie garden the county's most expensive animal feeding station.    Pellguns are quiet, and the good ones, I'm told, produce muzzle velocities that push 900 fps. That should be lethal to small critters, a significant sting to larger ones, but insufficient mass and range to be a threat to life forms beyond the boundaries of a large yard.

[Justin B.]

Altritter, I've got a Gamo Hunter 440 .22 cal pellet rifle and it'll really smoke 'em!  It was around $200 a couple years ago (now discontinued)  and the "Varmint Combo" scope was about another $70.  The advertised MV was 722 fps but the .177 models are advertised at 1200 fps!

A couple of sources are www.airgundepot.com and www.airgunexpress.com


Just added:

Although somewhat pricey this one looks like it would really knock the snot out of the little buggers...

http://www.airgundepot.com/gamo-hunter-extreme-air-rifle-22.html

[Altritter]

Wow! Sure beats the Daisy Pump that my parents never let me buy!

[Justin B.]

A lot of the really serious pellet rifles cost as much as a "real gun"!  European pellet rifles are very good performers as a lot of the countries ban conventional arms so they take air rifle performance to unbelievable heights...

The scope I mounted on it is this one:

http://www.airgundepot.com/varmint-hunter-kit.html

There are switches that you stick to the fore-stock to activate the laser or flashlight.  Unlike some of the reviews my flashlight has always worked fine...

[montmil]

Wow! Sure beats the Daisy Pump...

As a youngster, I had a Benjamin pump .177 that was quite powerful after you pumped about 10-12 strokes. Shot down many 1/48 scale plastic aircraft hung from the clothesline pole. Remember clotheslines?

Remembering the old Benjamin and the physical effort required to get one shot off prompted me to buy a CO2-powered long gun with a scope. Those critters robbing my bird feeders wouldn't wait for me to get pumped up.

Only later did I discover the high tech, barrel-breakover single-stroke air rifles. Gamo and others produce muzzle velocities that are amazing.

Recently picked up a new Cabela's catalog and saw some high end air rifles advertised as being even quieter for "city use".

Monte  

[Bengt_Phorqs]

Monte, I can see you now doing your very best Carl Spackler (Caddy Shack) imitation as you sight in on the little gopher cong..." In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, 'Au revoir, gopher'.   Now let's mix up some napalm for those blasted fire ants.

[Altritter]

Justin: <<A lot of the really serious pellet rifles cost as much as a "real gun"!  European pellet rifles are very good performers as a lot of the countries ban conventional arms so they take air rifle performance to unbelievable heights...>>

Precisely! I lived in West Germany (not yet unified) & remember a bit of it. To become certified to shoot a powder firearm was both arduous & expensive. I remember reading about air rifle enthusiasts (a cult?) and became interested, but never followed up. There have been periodic articles regarding the popularity of air rifles & their high level of sophistication. Other reports have appeared about the effect of China's entry into the market.

What intrigues me in my urban setting is the Gramo "Whisper" line of quiet air rifles, apparently equipped with what, if affixed to a powder firearm, would be a highly illegal silencer. (Yes, I note the sales pitch that the Gramo merely diverts the sonic report backward toward the shooter & and really doesn't "muffle" it. A distinction without a difference?)

For my part, I'm interested in hearing the muzzle report of a 1200-fps air rifle. I suspect it might approach that of the old .22 short, though perhaps not as percussive.

[Justin B.]

My Hunter 440 is actually quite quiet, but with a MV of just over 700 fps I guess it should be.  I'll drag mine out tomorrow and take a pic of it with scop and switches mounted...  I'm sure you can work the "saving the little Missus' garden" angle and get a hearty blessing to buy one of these!  8-)

[montmil]

...For my part, I'm interested in hearing the muzzle report of a 1200-fps air rifle. I suspect it might approach that of the old .22 short, though perhaps not as percussive.

My squirrel-getter is a Chinese copy of a popular Crossman CO2 air rifle. It is not the quietest air rifle on the market but with two CO2 cartridges in the air chamber it'll pop a hi-perf (read expensive) .177 pellet clean through a squirel's head... when I can steady my aim. Around 1000-1100 FPS.

Having tried a subsonic .22 short in the backyard I can say that both are similar. The air rifle having a slightly quicker/shorter report. If that makes sense...

Now that there are no longer dairy cattle on the farm, there's minimal danger of cows ingesting spent pellets while eating hay... from the barn where I now stalk stew pot-sized rats.

Monte

[Bengt_Phorqs]

Now that there are no longer dairy cattle on the farm, there's minimal danger of cows ingesting spent pellets while eating hay... from the barn where I now stalk stew pot-sized rats.

Remind me to bring the bbq if I ever get invited to dine at your palace.  I think that I'll stick with my Mathews compound bow.  I can usually put the point in a 2" circle at 20 yards and it doesn't make any noise at all.  [smiley=beerchug.gif]

[montmil]

Now that there are no longer dairy cattle on the farm, there's minimal danger of cows ingesting spent pellets while eating hay... from the barn where I now stalk stew pot-sized rats.

Remind me to bring the bbq if I ever get invited to dine at your palace.  I think that I'll stick with my Mathews compound bow.  I can usually put the point in a 2" circle at 20 yards and it doesn't make any noise at all.  [smiley=beerchug.gif]

Yeah, Mike.  You'll be like the Lone Ranger. Few people knew that he made poor ol' Tonto hike downrange to recover all those expensive silver bullets he popped off.

"Hey, Theresa. Sweetie, would you mind shaggin' my shafts?" That's ARROW shafts, lads!  Austin Powers is the man...

Monte

[bjamesw]

I would poison as a last resort.   Maybe our roof (norway?) rats in Savannah were bigger than yourn but our landlord bait the hell out of the four story old railroad depot that we lived in and for the rest of that long hot summer the smell of fat rats dying behind the walls was enough to go to court over to break the lease.   As they dehydrate they desperately seek water in the form of any dripping pipes they can locate behind your walls - too often in places that are extremely difficult for us to get at without taking shit apart.)

Mice will dry out in a day or two but these norway rats took a few weeks each to stop putrefying and they just kept coming in and kept finding the bait (he'd put it everywhere and it couldn't just be collected again.   Putrefying rat is perhaps the most depressing and disturbing smell you can imagine.

Best is to trap the ones that are already inside with baited accessible traps and then find out how to keep them out.