ASF Escaped!

It's been and amazing start of the day!!

I went down stairs to check on everyone and noticed that there was rat food all over the floor in the rat room. I then noticed some puddles of water. :shock:

I checked the puddles and discovered that either an rat or ASF had chewed though the tube (just enough to get water not enough to flood the floor). I replaced the chewed tubing and set about discovering which of these pests had escaped. :-x

The rats seemed fine...agiated, but nonetheless they are all present and accounted for. :-?

I didn't think the ASF would be the culpurits (they are after all in STEEL bins)



but..when I checked on them, this is what I found!



Since my ASF are semi-tame, I didn't think it would be a problem rounding them up...and it wasn't!! Looking around for something to catch them with because they were between bins (on top of the food in the second row) my eyes fell on my shop and vac! :twisted: If these were rats, it would never have worked!! but thank goodness ASF do not have the body mass of a regular rat.

I used my shop and vac to suck each one to where I could reach it and dispatch it. Luckily there were only 4 in that bin and they hadn't had ratterlings yet. I couldn't feed them to my snakes because they may have gotten into the poison that was on the floors.

All's well that ends well.

Congrats on finding them!

They chewed through STEEL bins?!!!!!!

They are like aliens.

Someone told me that those bins are in fact, fiberglass. My error. They feel like steel to me!

Yeah, caught all the suckers. That Shop and Vac was great!!

Phew---I was kinda freakin out!

I can imagine the noise of the shop-vac FOOMP! FOOMP! FOOMP!

Originally Posted by mvite

Phew---I was kinda freakin out!

I can imagine the noise of the shop-vac FOOMP! FOOMP! FOOMP!

My ASF are very fat, they will not fit into the shop vac nozzel. What it does is suck them up against the nozzel and hold them fast until I can get their tails. They don't exactly "run" from me, but when they are out, they aren't willing to come back and let me get their tails...they stay ..JUST out of reach.

Is it a blower/vac?

I know I have gone to baseball games where they shoot hot dogs into the crowd...

Maybe you can do that at the next herp show!

That's a nice healthy looking bunch! I am hoping to be bustin' with those buggers soon. Just a couple more weeks!

Originally Posted by mvite

Is it a blower/vac?

I know I have gone to baseball games where they shoot hot dogs into the crowd...

Maybe you can do that at the next herp show!

That's a nice healthy looking bunch! I am hoping to be bustin' with those buggers soon. Just a couple more weeks!

Why, yes it is!!

Hadn't thought to do THAT...the point is to keep them locked up.

Good luck on your goal! They are quite easy to keep and breed!

thanks for the pics, but what the h*** is a afs? thanks

Originally Posted by DONTshoot

thanks for the pics, but what the h*** is a afs? thanks

ASF (African Soft Furred) rat

i had about 8 of these bad boys get out in my garage...i had to hunt them down one by one and it took me like 4 hrs to catch em all (i dont have a shop vac but that was pretty clever). i let the cat in the garage like a sheep dog to help me round em up, he never killed any of them he just keep them runin and keep them from hiding for to long. looking back it was kinda of enternaining but i definitely learned you need a good cage for these suckers because saying the chew alot is an understatement.