Pack rats!

Ewww! I have never seen a rat before

I was fencing behind the house a couple days ago and Sam was just lying at my feet most of the time. Well he jumped up and went crazy in one of my flower boxes. I figured he was after a mouse and encouraged him to "get it". He was very enthusiastic . I walked over to make sure he was ok when he finally chased this THING out and up the wall of the house. My first thought was "wow! Someone's chinchilla got out" but soon realized that was no cute face, yuk. I had a shovel and whacked it off the house and again when it hit the ground. It died pretty quick. I used the shovel to pick it up out of Sam's reach and took it to DH and asked him what it was. He chuckled and told me it was a pack rat. ewww!

Next day I go into one of the empty chicken coops and notice lots of weird stuff in one of the nest boxes...yup pack rat nest! So outcome the live traps and a weasel trap. Loaded them with peanut butter and bread. Bait keeps getting nibbled at but the traps won't activate. Meant for skunks and weasels and the rat is likely not heavy enough. Getting real rat traps tomorrow. Anyway teen boy wants to see one of these things too so he has been checking the traps. Today he saw one running down the wall and swears he can hear others behind another wall.
Tomorrow I will set rat traps.

Yikes!
They are stinky lil devils those ones...
and chew chew chew, they will chew down your (chicken) house!

Wow Kelly, first a spider and then pack rats, yikes! I think you need to get the sheep, chickens and ducks back, they keep those critters at bay.
Good dog Sam for finding it for you and alerting you of the issue!

haha! Jayme! My first thought when I found them in the coop was "I bet if I still had turkeys I wouldn't have rats!" Never saw them in there before while it was being occupied with any fowl.

But no, shook myself out of that one. Traps will have to suffice

Hidden River wrote:Wow Kelly, first a spider and then pack rats, yikes! !

That`s what I thought when I first read this!
We have them here too. One outside in out shed, stupid thing. To big for the cat and the dogs are locked up at night. May have to get a trap too.
We had one in the tack room last year, but having barn cats now seems to keep them away.
Good luck catching the rest, everyone keeps telling me when you see one you know there are many more.

The dogs killed a pack rat here this week. The first year the barn went up we have "Ben" the pack rat. They stink and they are destructive. Never took eggs or anything just made a mess of things.

I like rodents. I think they are actually pretty cute.... not that I want one.

But then I ran an animal lab at the university --i took care of over 500 Norweign Hooded rats... real rats!!!

I had one in my office, Number 12. He used to have Coke with me in the evening when I was studying....