'98 Crown Vic, rat chewed wires - the saga...

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
snake creek shooting sports
Advertise with us
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
MacFromOK

MacFromOK

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
May 11, 2016
Messages
13,759
Reaction score
14,758
Location
Southern Oklahoma
ssgrock3 said:
What is wrong with traps
Click to expand...
The constant monitoring, baiting, and resetting. There are days at a time that I don't feel like going outdoors.

When I sold our hogs, I made the mistake of parking the feed grinder in my shop. After the rats cleaned out all the feeders, they moved to the shop and literally cleaned the grinder. They were so bad that you could smell rat urine when you opened the door.

I set traps. Traps disappeared. I finally started wiring 'em to transmission gears and other heavy metal parts, but there were so many rats that I wasn't making a dent in the population.

So... I put out antifreeze in shallow pans (this was back in the '90s), and they were completely gone in a few weeks. Anti-freeze has been my rat control ever since, until recently when mfrs put stuff in it to taste bad.

So, here we are. :/
 
918evo

918evo

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Jan 24, 2009
Messages
624
Reaction score
444
Location
Tulsa
98 is right around the time-frame when the cats had a higher percentage of palladium ($$$). The converters(should be 4) alone are likely worth more than $500, sell the engine to someone for $400, trans for $300 and crush the rest for $200= Problem solved.
 
MacFromOK

MacFromOK

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
May 11, 2016
Messages
13,759
Reaction score
14,758
Location
Southern Oklahoma
918evo said:
98 is right around the time-frame when the cats had a higher percentage of palladium ($$$). The converters(should be 4) alone are likely worth more than $500, sell the engine to someone for $400, trans for $300 and crush the rest for $200= Problem solved.
Click to expand...
Might be an option if I were physically able to do much of anything. :/

In which case I wouldn't be hanging out here very often...
:drunk2:
 
dennishoddy

dennishoddy

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Dec 9, 2008
Messages
84,819
Reaction score
62,547
Location
Ponca City Ok
MacFromOK said:
I'm sick of this "humane," "eco-friendly," and "pet-safe" nonsense regarding rat poison.

I want some good old fashioned poison that actually kills rats.

:smash: <-- Me & the rat... I'm the one with the hammer.
Click to expand...
The issue with rat poison is that the old stuff had secondary kills, sometimes to pets that ate the dead carcasses. The industry has gone to poisons that kill by several different methods so the secondary kills don't occur.
There are five ways that rat poisons work to kill rats, and the speed at which they are effective varies. While those are working, they continue to eat. Make sure and keep the rat poison cubes secured by wire as has been mentioned.
So now you have options. Rat traps that may not work so well for you, a cat or cats which I hate because when they run out of rats they are the #1 predator of ground nesting birds.
I had a similar issue with mice and rats in a barn that were chewing tires. The long term solution was the poison cubes. The short term solution was two part. We have a large population of black rat snakes in our area. If I saw one, it was captured and transplanted which was solution #2. The quickest since I'm 45 miles away from that barn was to do a shock and awe with traps. They aren't expensive so there were about 20 or so mouse traps and a dozen rat traps set and baited at one time.
A couple of weeks passed and went back to the barn. Most of the traps had done their job. Reset them and a couple weeks later there were just a few mice and no rats.
The black snakes worked well for long term until winter when the rodents started back in looking to get out of the weather. Traps back out.
Here is the way rat poisons work today.
  • Death From Internal Bleeding (3 to 7 days)
  • Death From Heart Attack (3 to 4 days)
  • Death From Lung Failure (12 hours to 2 days)
  • Death From Central Nervous System Failure (14 hours to 4 days)
  • Death From Dehydration (3 to 5 days)
 
MacFromOK

MacFromOK

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
May 11, 2016
Messages
13,759
Reaction score
14,758
Location
Southern Oklahoma
I ordered some of the "Just one bite" individual packets from Amazon a little while ago.

Hopefully that will do the trick. I left the hood up tonight, but it's probably gonna smell like rats for a while.

I really appreciate everyone's input. :thumb:
 
retrieverman

retrieverman

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Aug 13, 2012
Messages
14,121
Reaction score
58,384
Location
Texas
When I bought my OK house, there were signs of mouse activity in my barn, and I started putting out Liquitox liquid rat poison and have kept it out continuously. I keep corn and protein in the barn most of the year, and I haven’t had a single sack chewed on. Coincidence?!? I don’t think so.:angry3:
 

Similar threads

MacFromOK
RATS! Literally...
2
Replies
18
Views
2K
rc508pir
rc508pir
Desperado DLX

Latest posts

Top Bottom