Rat Killer

Rats have become a real problem in my garden. Over the summer they ate tons of tomatoes, melons, and watermelon. They constantly steal chicken feed. They are annoying and gross.

But the truly infuriating thing was when they discovered an area of the garden I refer to as “the nursery.” This is a shelf I’ve built between the Tiny Office and the wall where I grow herbs but also start seedlings. A couple months back they ate all of my seedlings. Then they ate everything in my aquaponics setup. Weeks of work gone overnight… that started a war.

First I started building cages to keep rats out. But where does that end? Am I really going to have a cage for every single plant in the garden? That’s not fun and it’s definitely not attractive.

Next, we removed nearly 20 feet of bushes that were full of rats nests. But they just started nesting on the other side of the wall, off our property. At night you could see and hear them running along the walls between houses, foraging in the garden, invading our chicken coop– they were everywhere, they were bold, at one point I even saw them running across our roof.

That’s when I moved from merely defending my garden from rats to going on offense to eliminate the problem.

As time has gone on I’ve gotten better and better at killing them. I originally bought an expensive electric trap that was supposed to electrocute them. In three months that thing hasn’t killed a single rat, waste of money. What I have had luck with is modifying old school rat traps.  I wire an almond onto the bait trigger then cover it with peanut butter– putting them out just after sunset. That way they can’t just lick off the peanut butter or gently lift the almond. They have to struggle with it a little, which is enough to set off the trigger, hopefully killing them instantly.

In the past few weeks I’ve killed several using this method, including three just last night.

How Do I Feel About Killing?

The truth is I have mixed feelings about going on the offense to kill rats.

On the one hand, I’ve learned there’s a difference between wanting a pretty garden and being a gardener. Being a gardener means you have to tend the garden. It’s an active state. This includes managing the garden well– and allowing rats to destroy your harvest, seedling, and eating chicken food is, bottom line, mismanagement of the garden. Not to mention rats spread disease and an uncontrolled population would ultimately damage our home, too.

On the other hand killing anything sucks. Baiting them with something delicious, setting dangerous traps, and ultimately passively killing them with traps while you sleep doesn’t feel all that sporting. Whereas I don’t have a problem killing something I’m going to eat, (fishing, hunting) killing something simply because it’s a pest feels gross.

In the end, I want to be a gardener, so I will tend my garden by becoming a rat killer.


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One response to “Rat Killer”

  1. Carl Fuglein Avatar
    Carl Fuglein

    Have you tried dynamite along that fence? That works. So does a shotgun if there’s a lot of them.

    Seriously, I’ve had rats before, eating the birdseed I put out for the wild birds. If you want to watch the birds, you have to put up with the rats. I’ve found the best way to kill them is the old school rat traps. I’ve had good success with them.

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