Mice eating their babies??

Indeed. She said something about a shovel. I was thinking shovel hell, grab a shotgun!!!

She said she would go in the room every 3 min and the Warf rat would be chewin threw cages tryin to get the Home grown Rats!

I would have been scared to even send my cat who kills squirles by the sounds of this Monster!

Yeah, I'm still not over it guys, just really trying to keep my mind off of it.

It is still here and still ripping big holes in the screen wire and lids on the other tubs of rats that are left.

We started moving things around in the house and found holes in the walls at the floorboards going from room to room.

Yes is HUGE, and def. a rat! My brother is coming today with very large rat traps.
We don't have a gun so yeah I got the shovel.

I took a hot glue gun and put 3 layers of wire screen on all the tubs yesterday, it's all I could think of to do for now.

I just don't understand WHY this crazy evil wild rat came in our house just to kill my colony, but yes I did have to put down about 12 of them and 8 being my breeders.

And no that rat would put a hurtin' on any cat any day!

Needless to say it kinda ruined all my excitement and joy about Layla and my birthday!


Amanda

Hit a place like tractor supply and pick up a have a heart trap and use some peanut butter. Put it along the baseboard where you have noticed previous activity and that'll be the best way to catch the evil one.

Haha Amanda (I still like the name Josey better),

I had the same problem (I live on an acre+ of land) big field rats were getting in and they were robbing me blind. I was running out of rat food so fast! They were carting it off and hiding it other places...sigh. They weren't killing my colonies (although I did worry about diseases), because they can't get though the tubs I showed you up in my previous post and they can't chew though the wire on the rat racks. Screen netting is not any kind of help you need a fence grade netting.

After trapping a few and even pulling one down from the rafters by the tail, and getting an exterminator (waste of money..the rats got smart)..I found the point of entry and put up some fence grade netting over it screwed the sucker down and and put plumber foam on the edges and inside the foam I have rat poison. I haven't had a problem with rats since.

But I do have some blocks/wheels of rat poison scattered thoughout the basement that have peanut butter in the centers (don't want them to just lick it off).

I personally wouldn't deal with the "Have a heart traps". But Deb's idea sounds great. Get some poison.

As for why the wild rat would do this: It's sadly nature. This big male rat smells a bunch of other rats with babies that aren't of his blood. It's his instinct to destroy another males offspring to make sure it's his genes that carry on. As for killing the other female rats I'm sure they were scared, and combative, but their attacks meant nothing against this guy. The poor domestic rats were doomed from the start.

Originally Posted by dturner100

I personally wouldn't deal with the "Have a heart traps". But Deb's idea sounds great. Get some poison.

I disagree with the poison because rodents tend to hoard things like food and you may never know what else could get into the collected poison. The problem with poison if the rat dies in a wall or somewhere not easily accessed for removal of the carcass which will inevitably be ripe by the time you find it. With the have a heart you can kill it and dispose of it without finding it by the stench of a long dead critter.

Indeed, a good point David.

Originally Posted by DAND

I disagree with the poison because rodents tend to hoard things like food and you may never know what else could get into the collected poison. The problem with poison if the rat dies in a wall or somewhere not easily accessed for removal of the carcass which will inevitably be ripe by the time you find it. With the have a heart you can kill it and dispose of it without finding it by the stench of a long dead critter.

Yep, they hoard..and feed it to their babies, or the other rats outside find their hoards and the issues are resolved before they become issues. Anything outside that gets into a rats nest to eat the hoard, imo, doesn't belong in my house anyway..so I am not actually worried about that.

But you are right, sometimes they die some where inaccessible..then I just spray odor neutralizer and wait it out.