Competing food sources
Food competition is the biggest barrier to success. Things like compost bins, dog biscuit bags, food stores and poultry feeders all provide excellent food sources for rats. They have a very good food memory and will tend to go for foods they are used to before trying something else. While easier said than done, eliminating food sources is critical when setting up your trap. Do you know what the pests are eating?
Ask yourself the following:
1. Do I have a constantly available food source? Are the rats routinely targeting something on my property?
2. Can I better secure or eliminate the food source?
3. Can I shift that food source to another location?
4. Can I temporarily stop the food source? In the case of compost bins, get a large bucket with a lid and store your new compost in it elsewhere for 3 weeks. The rats and mice will then search for new foods.
5. Is the food source seasonal? In this case then it’s just a matter of time before the food source ceases and the rats/mice begin to look for something else. If you have a Goodnature Smart trap in place you’ll have peace of mind they’re ready for action when the food source runs out.
Common Food Sources to Secure
Is there pet food lying around? Or scraps in a compost bin? Securing these, and removing them as a freely available food source, will vastly increase the chances of success with your trap(s).
In a chicken coop it’s best to use a feed dispenser, which requires the chickens to engage with it. This will ensure that all feed is eaten by the chickens, not the local rats and mice, and reduces the amount of food available on the ground.
When feeding food scraps to chickens or other animals, consider if there are any ways you can limit when this is left out and how they can access it.
If it’s orchard crops, think about when the food is on the ground and how you can reduce waste. Consider intensifying trapping seasonally, before the produce ripens.
Maybe you’ve seen rats chewing through feed bags, or mice in your hay bales. Wherever possible, placing all feed in secure bins will make a big difference to catching and controlling rodents.
The aim is to get the pests to start looking for a new food source (in your trap!). We do this by eliminating the food they’re currently eating where possible, and prefeeding with the paste you’re going to put into the trap. We have a range of pastes available so if you'd like to try a different paste pump formula you can select one and a corresponding Rodent Paste pouch here.
The best way to do pre-feed the site is by squeezing around ten ‘pea sized’ dollops of paste from our Rodent Paste Pouch to the area around your A24. Pre-feeding encourages rats and mice toward your trap and away from any competing food sources. Repeat this process for five days to build their preference for the paste. After the five days, stop using the rat paste pouch. Now the only way the rodents can access the paste is by entering the trap!