The best types of rat traps for rodent control

When it comes to rat traps, many people associate with a standard crush die (they are also called a mousetrap). Indeed, such traps are the most common, quite convenient to use, effective and at the same time inexpensive. But they have serious flaws, because of which they often do not want to use them - we will talk about this in more detail below.

Fortunately, the light did not converge on the trap crush, and for catching rats, you can also use numerous rat traps of other designs - tunnels, cages, vertices, various original home-made tools made from available materials at hand. Moreover, in terms of efficiency and ease of use, these traps are not inferior to rat traps-crushers, and in many respects even surpass them.

Let's look at the most popular rat trap designs, find out what features they have, and figure out how to significantly improve their performance by choosing the right bait ...

Cage trap

The rat trap is good for its safety in use - it can not cause harm to humans or pets.

The principle of its action is that the rat climbs inside the trap, pulls the bait, lowers the gatehouse, after which the cage door slams, and the animal can no longer escape. Thus, the rat trap-cage works humanely - it does not kill or injure the animal, it can be released outside the house or site after capture.

There are several drawbacks to this design:

Something needs to be done with a living rat. It’s not everyone’s capable of independently killing it, but taking it somewhere and releasing it where the animal does no harm is difficult and long. Alternatively, prey can be given to the cat (but if this cat did not catch it initially, then it is possible that it will not be possible to control the rat cat trapped);
The rat trap itself is rather cumbersome - taking into account the height of the gatehouse, it can only be placed in an open place, and it does not always fit where the rat is likely to find it. And during storage, the design takes up a lot of space.

There is a rat trap-cage on average from 500 to 1000 rubles, you can buy it on industrial markets, in home goods stores, as well as on the Internet (sold under the brands Maxi, The Nutcracker, Clean House and others).

You can also make a similar trap with your own hands, although this is a rather complicated task requiring certain carpentry skills and a special tool. An analogue of the rat trap-cage, working on the same principle, can be made from various improvised means - plastic bottles, food containers or coffee cans. And especially creative wrestlers with rodents make similar designs even from graters for vegetables.

Feedback

“We didn’t live for many years, until a rat came to us. I think that I came running from the neighbors, spoiled us a lot of nerves. He began to choose a rat trap, decided to buy a cage, because somehow it was a pity to kill an animal. Moreover, we live outside the city, letting out a field is not a problem. Bought in Moscow for 450 rubles. Such a normal, neat. As a bait hung a piece of fat. And it worked! I hear at night - something is making noise in the kitchen. I came there, the rat caught and rushing about in this cage, everything was shaking. So the working thing ... "

Igor, Zhabkino

Zürner's rat trap

Zürner's trap is another humane classic rat trap that looks like a tall, long wooden house with two entrances from different sides. Inside the house there is a bait, picking up to which, the rat in a certain place gets on the tipping floor and falls into a special closed chamber.The floor itself then returns to its place, and several more rats may fall into the trap.

In general, the drawbacks of the Zürner rat trap are almost the same as those of the cell trap. Unless it is even more cumbersome, and therefore it is used mainly in industrial enterprises or in scientific research. It’s difficult to buy, they are not currently engaged in industrial production, and therefore most often such rat traps are made by craftsmen with their own hands.

An important advantage of the design is the ability to catch several rats at once with it.

On a note

The principle implemented in the Zürner rat trap is often used in the manufacture of highly effective home-made mousetraps and rat traps. For example, you can catch a rodent if you put a tunnel (a tipping bridge) made of a sheet of paper on the edge of the table, at the end of which lies a bait, and underneath is a bucket of water or a barrel. To make this rat trap you don’t even need to buy anything special - everything is made from improvised materials.

Rat-trap

This trap works like a Zürner trap, but it is not a wooden structure, but a large mesh "bag". In it, under the weight of the body of the animal, the support also falls, and the animal enters the compartment from which it can no longer get out.

You can make such a trap from the fishing top, closing one of the conical holes with a reclining bottom.

The rat trap is made of metal mesh that the rat will not gnaw at. It does not have significant advantages over the Zürner trap, and it is also poorly presented on sale. Typically, the tops are used to catch rats in various hunting farms and in nurseries, where similar designs are purchased for catching other small animals - marten, squirrels, ground squirrels and hamsters.

Killing rats with electric traps

Perhaps the most modern rat traps are electric. In them, the rat closes the contacts of the electric circuit (becoming paws on metal electrodes or grabbing the bait with its teeth), and receives an electric shock with a voltage of several thousand volts.

The main advantage of such rat traps over those discussed above is the automatic (well, or semi-automatic) solution of all problems with rodents. The latest models of these traps are so designed that the corpse of a rat does not even have to be picked up. Moreover, you don’t even have to look at him - the rat trap just leans over the garbage bag, its contents are shaken out, and that’s all.

On a note

Sometimes, out of ignorance, people start looking in stores for some kind of electronic device from rats, meaning the electric rat trap, and they are offered an electric ultrasonic device (repeller). So, it is important to understand that there are no ultrasonic rat traps - ultrasound is used specifically to scare away rodents, and not to destroy them.

Today in Russia you can buy the American trap Rat Killer Yutec from electric rat traps (although it is rapidly disappearing from the market) and Victor's high-tech rat traps. For example:

Victor Rat Zapper Classic (price about 3500 rubles);
Victor Electronic Rat Trap (costs about 4,500 rubles);
Victor Multi Kill Electronic Mouse Trap (about 8500 rubles). This model has a compartment for automatically collecting the bodies of dead rats, and therefore with its help you can catch up to 8 pests in one night.

It is also useful to read: Ultrasonic rat and mouse repeller Clean House

Modern electric rat traps are quite effective and safe to use, they operate on batteries (in standby mode, one set of batteries can last for a year or more).

The main disadvantage of this type of device is its relatively high price. It is not always rational to spend several thousand rubles to get rid of one rat.

In addition, in some cheap models of electric rat traps, the protection system is not well developed, and there is a risk that if a child or pet tries to get something out of the trap, it will receive an unpleasant electric shock (fortunately, not fatal). In rat traps of the latest models, a move is specially organized in which only a rodent can penetrate to the electrode, but the child’s hand or cat’s paw will not pass.

Feedback

“We used Victor trap, it's just a bomb! Before that, we had an ordinary slamming cage, the trouble with rats caught was the sea. The problem is that we have a private house and a barn, rats are constantly appearing here. You can’t put a mousetrap - our lazy cat can catch its paw, so they put a cage. And what to do with a rat from a cage is not clear. If the rat is small, then the cat takes it. And if healthy, foul, then you need to kill. Walking through the entire village to the river is not an option. Yes, I can’t even look at this rat. Therefore, they bought an electric one. The price, of course, bites. In St. Petersburg, an average of 4,000 rubles. But decided, bought. When the rat is caught, it simply lies there, does not rush, does not twitch, dead. I turn off the rat trap, shake the rat out in the trash, then put it in place. Convenient, simple and fast. ”

Tatyana, Copper Plant

Special glue traps for rodents

Such rat traps work due to the fact that the rat sticks with its paws (sometimes with the body) to a special very viscous glue - it tries to tear itself away, bites into the glue even more, sticks with wool, and can no longer run away.

The beauty of glue rat traps is that they rarely work (sometimes this happens if dust or moisture gets on the glue). These are not mechanical devices in which misfires occur, and which, when triggered, kill only one animal. Several rats and mice can adhere to the glue at the same time, and it remains effective for a very long time.

In addition, glue traps are very inexpensive. The glue from rodents itself costs around 100 rubles per tube, and to install such a rat trap, it is enough to glue the substrate (cardboard, plywood), put the bait in the middle and place the prepared trap where rats or mice often run. All animals that try to get close to the bait will stick.

On a note

Ready-to-use glue traps for rodents are also sold. They are inexpensive and work as efficiently as homemade ones.

There are three main disadvantages of glue traps:

Inhumanity - animals suffer for a long time in such traps, slowly dying of thirst (or they need to be killed immediately after capture). It is possible, of course, for humane reasons to detach a mouse or a rat from such an adhesive using vegetable oil, but it will not be so easy to do with an aggressive animal;
Glue can smear a pet or a child. It will be very difficult to wash away the pollution - in cats and dogs, after this, you have to cut the hair;
Do not use such a rat trap outside the premises so that no birds come into them.

Nevertheless, the efficiency of glue traps is quite high - with their help, at low financial cost, it is quite possible to get rid of even a large number of rodents in the room.

Feedback

“We had rats constantly living in OBI in winter, the administration decided to fight them and ordered the placement of glue rat traps (they are the cheapest). We arranged in a warehouse and at unloading, the next day, three sparrows got into one rat trap (at unloading). So it was a pity they were, and it is impossible to tear this bird, feathers strew from it, it sticks even more. One sparrow was saved, and two others were strangled while we pulled them out. After that, we removed the glue, put the plastic Supercat. They caught them all winter ... "

Angelina, Moscow

Advantages and disadvantages of a standard rat trap crush (mousetrap)

The well-known mechanical rat traps-crushers are quite effective, inexpensive and easy to use traps.The photo below shows a classic version of this type of device:

The principle of their action is that the baited gatehouse keeps a powerful spring from being lowered. The device of the gatehouse in this rat trap is such that it is worth the rat pulling the bait, as the spring descends and nails the animal with a strong bracket, usually breaking its neck, skull or spine.

Large rat traps with a length of about 30 cm are used to catch rats. Using a standard spring trap to catch a rat is not always effective, since in many cases the spring of a mousetrap does not kill the rat.

It is also useful to read: Poison from rats and mice Goliath and features of the use of this tool

Such rat traps are good for their efficiency, cheapness and ease of use. There is a crush on average from 100 to 200 rubles.

To charge and properly install the structure, you must:

Put on a hook a suitable bait (about her choice is written just below);
Bend the bracket back, cover it with a gatehouse and rest the gatehouse on a hook with a bait;
Put the rat trap where the rat is likely to find it.

After the capture of the animal, the bracket is raised, the rat is removed and thrown out.

There are several drawbacks to this whole design:

A trap can cause serious injury to a cat, dog or child who has touched the bait. Moreover, large rat traps can even break the paw of a pet or finger of a child;
And again, the rat needs to be taken out - especially fastidious people cannot do this.

If you remove the rat from the trap for you is not a problem, and you plan to use the device where pets and children do not appear, then the use of crush will be one of the best options for dealing with rats.

Rat trap-crushers are manufactured and sold under different brands:

Clean House (wooden rat trap with metal bracket). Analogs are Stayer Standart and Rat & Mouse;
Super Cat is a plastic trap similar to slamming jaws (this type of trap is also called rat trap-lock). Its analogues are the Look 730 and 733, Mr. Mouse, Big Oval.

The photograph below shows the SuperCat rat trap (from Swissino):

In addition, today in the market are numerous Chinese rat traps of the same types, which are also quite effective.

Sometimes a trap KP-130 is used as a rat trap, which is a typical hunting trap for small fur animals.

Feedback

“My husband bought a Super Cat rat trap a couple of years ago, so she still works. Good thing, reliable. She has the good thing that the rat should just stand on a special heel. Came, clap - and crushed her. I don’t know, probably, about 20 pieces we have already caught in the barn. They’ve put him a couple of times in the basement, rats don’t get used to her, they’re not afraid of her, they are always caught.

Inna, Odessa

Several effective homemade rat traps

Home-made rat traps with the correct manufacture and use can be no less effective than purchased ones, and they can be easily assembled from improvised materials (literally in a matter of minutes, without going to the market or to the store and without spending money on this).

We have already covered overturning traps in the Zürner trap block above. A variant of such rat traps is a bottle pierced by wire and mounted horizontally above a bucket or barrel. If you smear it with bait - sauce, minced meat, mayonnaise - and bring the stand to it in the form of a small inclined board, then the rat will climb onto the edge of the bucket, reach for the bait, and as soon as it gets onto the bottle, it will turn around and the animal will fall into the bucket:

An even simpler design is simply a bucket or pan that rests on a very unstable support, such as a ring of wire. If you put the bait under the bucket, the rat will try to climb behind it, push either the bucket or the support itself, and the bucket will cover it.

On a note

This design, by the way, can be improved if you open the pan inside the crossbar, tie a thread to the support, transfer this thread through the crossbar and tie the second end of the thread to the bait. The rat will pull the bait, pull the prop and cover himself with a trap.

Finally, you can make a rat trap from a heavy object that simply crushes the rat if it tries to remove the bait from the gatehouse - this type of trap in the wild is made of stones and props from sticks.

Craftsmen also make snares from cable ties, ingenious livestock from plastic bottles - in fact, there are a lot of options, and the inventors constantly come up with new original designs and methods for catching rats.

The following video shows an example of making a home-made rat trap using a cable tie:

What is important to know about the use of bait in rat traps

All rat traps work due to the fact that they attract rats with bait, therefore it is necessary to approach its selection with special care - the effectiveness of the whole undertaking may depend on this.

Practice shows that the best bait for rat traps is odorous meat products such as smoked sausage, minced meat with onions, smoked lard. Also quite effective are fish, cheese, and an egg. However, meat is good because it attracts rats the most - these animals, so to speak, are more carnivorous than, for example, mice (mice prefer plant foods - grain, nuts, fruits).

Therefore, if you charge the rat trap with a piece of sausage, then the rats are unlikely to resist it.

In those traps where the rat should pull the bait, you need to use products of the appropriate dense consistency - sausage, lard, cheese. Where the mere fact of the rat entering the rat trap (for example, in the Zürner trap) is sufficient, food for cats and dogs, canned food or minced meat can be used as bait.

Feedback

“The reinforced metal rat trap, powerful, made in the Czech Republic, works perfectly for us. In it, the spring is directly built into the stand, and along the edges of the die itself are the teeth. It works without misfire, we charge in the evening, and in the morning the rat in the rat trap is ready. From our own experience we found out that the best bait for rats is a crust of bread with beer, verified. They climb on it, they can’t resist ... "

Alexey, Moscow

If you have personal experience using a rat trap of one kind or another, be sure to share the information by leaving your review at the bottom of this page (in the comments box). Did the device help you and were there any problems while using it?