Wednesday August 31, 2022 Guerneville CA.
Baking soda doesn’t kill rats
I was wondering about this when I first heard about it. There were people on YouTube saying baking soda will kill rats but no one was offering any real proof, which isn’t real easy to do since a poisoned critter usually leaves the scene.
The hype sounded good. Rats and mice can’t fart or burp so when they consume the baking soda, it expands and they puff up and die. And the baking soda is safe to other critters as they don’t have the no fart and no burp problem the rats and mice are supposed to have.
Tried it out
Since I was having a rat problem in my chicken pen I mixed up half baking soda to half ground oats and put some out in a bait can and put my cam that is hooked to my computer out there to record any movement around the bait can so I could see for myself what might happen.
First night
I had a lot of rats come by and eat out of the bait can. They were real couscous but eventually most of them ate from the can,
Except the biggest rat that I think is a momma that has three medium little ones that ate well. I think these are the rats that have been living in my attic and my garage.
The big Momma and the three little ones are what I used to figure this out as they kept coming back each night, still alive. And the thing about big Momma is she wouldn’t take the bait for the first three nights although she did check it out periodically
Kept coming back
Her three little ones ate the bait each night, doing so for most of the night and came back alive each night after that.
On the fourth night big Momma decided the bait was ok and ate it like a pig all night keeping her little ones away most of the time as she was gorging herself.
Will she come back the next night after eating all that?
Baking soda doesn’t kill rats
You bet she did and so I’d say the baking soda thing is a myth and doesn’t work at all on rats. Maybe mice but I doubt it. I can’t say as I didn’t test the mice.
If the baking soda really did what was claimed all the rats that fed the first night should of had a real problem but that didn’t seem to be the case.
Bait can
Here’s the baited can with some little rats feeding there.
And here is the big one, Momma Rat the night she pigged out on the bait.
Another test
Tonight I plan to switch things up and get rid of the bait and only put out some chicken feed to get all the rats back eating the good stuff, then I can slip them some bait with plaster of Paris in it to test that out.
New camera mount construction
I needed a better camera mount in the chicken pen that I could move around easier so I made something I can just wire to the pen’s ceiling, a little board with wires to hold it up and a screw to hold the cam to the board.
All mounted and ready to install in the chicken pen.
This should work better as it now can look down on the critters and is easy for me to move to another spot when I want to.
Cam view
I put out some chicken feed in the white container and here’s the cam view of that tonight with some of the little guys feeding. The little guys are couscous but are eating the chicken feed. Big Momma has been by but I haven’t seen her partake yet, but she will eventually.
Rat proof feeder
I also set up the automatic feeder in the new chicks pen. This feeder helps reduce rats with it’s higher sides so the chickens don’t kick out their food and with the door shut at night there’s not much for the rats.
Out for a ride
Around five it was riding time so I headed up into the hills and rode the dirt bike around a bit.
Eventually I ended up here for a short walk.
I walked out the trail here just enough to get a bit of exercise, not far.
Then back on the bike and rode up this trail to the water fall area.
This is the view looking back from the waterfall. Not much water in the falls right now, it’s just barely wet.
Leaving there I rode on down this trail and over to my brother’s garden area.
The dozer was parked there and the battery charger needed to be hooked up to charge the battery up.
And I looked around the garden a bit. His tomatoes are ripe so I grabbed a couple of them for supper.
I headed on home and it was nap time.
Nice day.
This is a Bad year for Rats in our neighborhood also, seems to be getting worse. There is lots of ripe fruit on the ground in the neighborhood, plenty for them to feed on and get ready for winter. My dog Gemma has been sleeping outside waiting for the rats to come out at night so she can bark and chase them. She has caught a few. My neighbor Barbara has an aviary that seems to attract the rats like your chicken coop and feed. I’ve tried many different approaches over the years and the best results I got were from our old tomcat named Ziggy. He loved hunting at night and had good results. When Ziggy was a little kitten we found him one night on the side of the road and brought him home. Hunting the mice and rats must have been in his DNA, he was a feral cat and quite aggressive. One night he brought home a rat that was playing possum and let him loose in our house. It took me three days to trap it. The “Old Ways” seem to work the best, but training cats to hunt is not my expertise.
Dump a whole package of oat meal in a 5 gallon bucket. Add 1 1/2 cups of plaster of Paris . Mix with hands. Put in your rat feed can. Rat B gone…..
Kevin,
I’ve used the plaster of Paris before and thought it worked, but. I want to be sure this time so I’m doing a test like I did for the baking soda which a lot of people also said killed rodents. I was hoping the baking soda would work as it’s supposed to be safe to other critters.
So, we’ll see,
Thanks,
Bob
If the plaster of Paris works, I’ll give it a try.
That’s interesting … I’m betting on the plaster. You do seem to have a rat problem! Yum tomatoes … love them!!!