| Click to Post a New Message!
Page | [ 2 ] | | |
| | |
|
Pack Rats
I have heard numerous stories about Rat Zappers getting triggered and the bait taken without a kill. I am not sure why. A friend of mine improved his kill rate by putting the Rat Zapper on a wet towel so that their feet get wet before entering.
The adult woodrats just fit in a 3" PVC pipe, and in my contraption there are electrodes all around. The electric fence transformer that I use is old and probably more powerful than some of the newer ones that I have seen. Also, it plugs in and produces continuous electrical current after it is switched on. The Rat Zappers shut off to save the battery. I used my fence transformer in California to keep Opossums off of my roof and it would even kill them. A gardner also climbed up on my fence to trim a tree and got into my fence wire but he survived. He was not happy and I doubt that he ever climbed my fence again.
|
|
 Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Pack Rats
Last night I got the first bait stolen from the electric trap without them triggering the electrical current. I am beginning to think that these Pack Rats are as smart as squirels. Anyway, the current potential victim seems to have used a method that thwarts the trigger.
I am going to modify the trigger a bit tonight. The first trigger that I made turned on the electric when the rat pulled on the bait. It appears that this one pushed on the bait against the wall of the pipe to eat it. So, I will change the switch to work on push or pull.
I may also cover the bait with a porous cloth or screen to make it more difficult for them to steal it.
I also had another missed trigger on my mechanical trap last night. These traps look like bigger versions ofthe wood mousetrap. I have a very small leg trap that I might put out with wired bait. It is about the size that you might use for a coyote. I don't know if the pack rats have enough weight to trigger it, but if they do, it would surely kill them.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Pack Rats
Are they big enough to set-off a motion sensor or trip a light beam? Sounds like you could make an interesting device with either of those technologies.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Pack Rats
It is interesting that you mentioned that. I have been sketching up just such a trigger circuit that would latch a relay and apply high voltage when the beam is broken. But this has to be done without the high voltage coming back into the sensing electronics and destroying it.
This has become an interesting puzzle. I am trying to make it as simple as possible, but I might try the light beam approach in the future.
I also have some very sensitive microswitches that have a small wire on them. If you touch the wire in any direction, it will trigger the relay circuit. That will probably be the next generation before I resort to light beams or PIR.
I was kicking around some ideas with a friend of mine about this problem and we figured that after we got a good trigger signal from a switch, light beam or whatever, that we could do just about anything after that from closing a trap door to turning on a vacuum cleaner motor.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Pack Rats
I was just thinking here...........
I was taught that the best way to defeat an enemy, is to use the enemy's own habits against him.
A rat will not hesitate to force itself into a small space in the quest for food.
Since the rat is a 4-legged animal, it will always stand on at least one foot on each side of it's body at any one time.
It seems to me that you could completely eliminate the mechanical switch entirely by making the rat's own body form the switch itself.
A non-conductive floor in a narrow tunnel, with a conductive strip laminated (a la PC board) on each side of the floor would ensure that the rat would complete the circuit with it's feet as it walked along the tunnel. If the tunnel were sloped uphill, gravity might even eject the victim once it died and lost it's grip. A bait which was sufficiently delicous smelling enough, and a long enough tunnel would ensure that there was no way the rat could even get to, let alone eat, the bait.
Of course if you wanted to get rather macabre, you could try the idea one of my employees came up with. A baited piece of PVC tube, connected to a large volume air tank, and pointed at a solid object. The rat goes in for the food, hits the trigger and the compressed air turns him into a kamakazee rat missle.
I like the electrified tunnel of death myself, all of which goes into the category of Plan 'B' in the Destroy Squirrels file.......
Best of luck.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Pack Rats
I like the rat mortar idea. Except it would be more fun to launch them toward the crabby neighbors yard.
I suspect the commercial Rat Zapper would work a lot better if I could find some sort of conductive paste to coat the plates.
I think there is not enough current getting through their little footsies.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Pack Rats
Mark, I don't exactly HOW conductive it is, but I'm told the copper-based anti-seize pastes available at any place that sells auto supply stuff is VERY conductive.
Best of luck.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Pack Rats
How does the zapper work? You are using a electric fencer supply secondary? If getting contact is a problem, switch to an old furnace ignition transformer. Output is 8000 to 16000 volts, lots of voltage, but lower current. It may do the job. If not it’ll sure burn the hair off.
How about triggering a pneumatic cylinder and firing a bolt into the pipe. Live better eclectically!
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Pack Rats
Murf & Mark, those electrical pastes do work. I've used them on certain electical connections as an engineer to prevent corrosion from cutting out the electrical circuit. They do conduct electricity and may be just what you need to make the electric rat circuit work.
Personnaly, I love the rat mortar myself. I'm at work and deperately trying not to laugh too loudly. It reminds me of those air powered pumpkin launchers. I bet it would work. Even if they survived, they'd be pretty shaken up.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Pack Rats
I think killing them off one by one is a lost cause. More will just move in.
Find out why you're having such a problem with them. Are you storing grain, birdseed, or anything else that is their food supply? Can your vehicles be made less like safe havens for them? If the cars are sitting outdoors and not being used for so long rats are nesting in them, have you thought about selling them or moving them indoors?
Also try to think of ways to make the area scarier to rodents. Rats like cover, tall grass/weeds, and stuff in the yard to hide in/under. Cut the grass along the house foundation and around your cars super-short. Remove anything in the yard they can hide under (lawn equipment, wheelbarrows, and such).
Poison is a double-edged sword. It'll work for awhile. Then you'll be left with rats who prefer not to eat it or who have a natural resistance to the chemical. In the meantime you're leaving around a poison pellets and toxic carcasses that your pets, local wildlife, or small kids could get hurt with. Plus rats sometimes pick stupid places to die, leaving your garage smelling of rotting roadkill for weeks. Yuck.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
| |
|
Page | [ 2 ] | | |
Thread 114197 Filter by Poster:
9 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
|
()
Picture of the Day
Coachlarry
Unanswered Questions
Active Subjects
Hot Topics
Featured Suppliers
|
Gas Generator Weather Protecti
08-03-2005, 13:34 
Pics
Reply
Digg It 
Del.icio.us 
