How to Set Rodent Traps | Tips to Make Traps Work
Trap placement is our #1 tip because without proper trap location, you will either miss the opportunity to attract and trap rats or the rat will avoid the trap altogether. Many people think that rats like to crawl in tight spaces, be covered or enclosed, or wander out in the open looking for food. Rats will not move far away from their "rodent highways" along fences or barriers in search of food. If you see evidence of rat droppings then you have found a rodent highway, and your traps should be placed in close proximity to these areas.
You have heard the phrase "strength in numbers" and rat trap quantity is no exception. In addition to Tip #1 which provides rat trap placement guidance, our #2 tip is equally important. With multiple trap placement, you also have the opportunity to test different food baits such as peanut butter, ground meat, seeds, or cheese inside the Bait Cage attachment to see which is the most effective at attracting rats in your area. Rats may have varying food preferences, even from one yard to the next, so experimenting and using multiple traps will help you be more successful eliminating your rodent problem fast!
There are many differing opinions about factors that prevent rats from approaching traps. Here at Bait Cage, we have used the same trap to catch 5 or 6 rats without replacing it. Sometimes all you need to do is remove the dead rat, swipe a little more bait on the Bait Cage surface, and reset the trap since the Bait Cage attachment has preserved the bait inside the Bait Cage. But if your trap is weathered, rusted, or warped then it may have reduced trigger sensitivity or slower kill bar speed potentially allowing a rat to escape the trap.
Neophobia is the fear of new things and sometimes rats suffer from this condition. If you suspect rat activity but find they are avoiding your traps, try smearing some bait on the bait pedal without setting the trap first and leave it out for several days. If the bait remains, remove the trap from that location and place bait on the ground or nearby surface and see if it's gone by the morning. When you find the bait has been taken, progress to placing the trap with the bait but don't set the trap. If the bait is taken from the unset trap, you've successfully tricked the rat in trusting the food and the source. Now you're ready to deploy the Bait Cage Kit, set the trap, and make the kill!
Rat traps with bait not only attract rats but they can also be food sources for other living creatures such as beautiful songbirds. A set rat trap is a dangerous weapon and will do harm to about anything that encounters it, so keep your traps released until it's rat elimination time. The rat will begin to venture out in search of food at dusk then go back to its nest before the sun comes up. Your trap setting schedule should the same because we want to eliminate rats, not the friendly creatures we love to live with.
Bait Cage has experimented with various methods of encouraging rats to stop and feed at the traps. Using night vision cameras, we looked at locations and shelters where traps were placed and observed various degrees of rat comfort levels. We noticed that rats do not necessarily like to feed where they shelter, with baited traps right next to rat nests that were ignored. We found that rats do not like entering a small hole unless it expands into a large space with several different exits. A small box or similar was ignored. We also observed that rats move very quickly when out in the open, rarely stopping to feed. However, when traps were placed perpendicular to a fence line known to have rat activity and then covered with a wire tomato cage (pictured above), the rats would stop, feed, and get caught. The rats would first observe the cage, move around it, then enter where the trap was located and begin feeding. Allowing the rat to feel comfortable will encourage it to hang around the trap and continue to work at the bait, which is where the Bait Cage Kit is especially lethal. Because the bait is captured in the Bait Cage attachment and secured to the rat trap bait pedal, the rat will eventually trigger the trap and get caught. Adult rats are inherently cautious, and we encourage you to experiment with different methods to find success. If you find something else that works, let us know!
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