Rat Bait Holder Made From Junk

Intro: Rat Bait Holder Made From Junk

My neighbour has a massive macadamia tree. The tree provides a ready supply of rat food which means a ready supply of rats. The rats nest in my shed, my garden and anywhere else they feel like. At night they make a terrible noise while they eat the fruit and veggies growing in my garden. They have destroyed a lot of stuff and make a lot of stinky mess so they have to go. Removing the main food source (the macadamia tree) is not an option as it does not belong to me. So sadly it is time to set traps and lay baits.
I did not want other animals to eat the baits and I did not want to spend a lot of money on a commercial solution (where is the fun in that) so I designed my own bait holder made of junk.
The idea is to make the bait inaccessible to animals that are not rats, but still make it easy to for me to inspect and change baits.

STEP 1: Tools and Materials

The tools:
- Screwdriver (ar an electric drill)
- A marking pen
- A pair of scissors
- A craft knife

The materials:
- 600 mm length of ag pipe (flexible drainage pipe)
- A plastic jar with a screwtop lid (must be wider than the diameter of the pipe)
- A bit of wood longer than the pipe
- 2 screws that are long enough to fix the top of the pipe to the wooden base
- 1 shorter screw to attach the bait to the wooden base

STEP 2: Cut a Window in the Pipe

Measure 1/2 way along the pipe. Using the scissors and the knife cut out a section of the pipe. I cut it down half way. It is importandt that the cut out is smaller than the width of the jar.

STEP 3: Cut a Hole in the Jar

Trace around the end of the pipe so that you have a circle on the side of the jar, near the base. Now do this again on the opposite side. Carefully cut out the circles with the knife or scissors.
I found it easiest to drill a hole to act as a starting place for the scissors.

STEP 4: Push the Pipe Through the Jar

Push the pipe through the jar.
Twist the pipe so the cut out window is facing up towards the jar lid opening.

STEP 5: Screw Down the Ends

Use the 2 long screws to attach the ends of the pipe to the bit of wood. The long screw has the double function of halving the size of the opening making it harder for larger animals to crawl through.

STEP 6: Screw Down the Bait

The bait goes inside the jar, in the window that you cut in the pipe.
Use the shorter screw to fasten the bait through the pipe and the base of the jar into to the timber.
This will stop the bait falling out and will stop the rats running away with it.

STEP 7: Put the Lid on the Jar

Tightly screw the lid on the jar and place the whole lot where you know the rats are. Make sure that it is out of reach of curious children and animals.

Comments

[Cacadogg]

ThanQ for this idea and caring for all the other animals.

We all really need to be responsible when dealing with poison.

I use FARNAM JUST ONE BITE that I get from Amazon.

Using gloves, i put it inside a double plastic bag and break it into small pieces using a hammer and only place a little out at a time.

Please make sure to take a look at this article.

https://www.audubon.org/magazine/january-february-2013/poisons-used-kill-rodents-have-safer

[waynevanwijk]

Further feedback on these rat bait stations. I upgraded the bait to something that was recommended by the city council's rat expert and also bought several commercial bait stations at the same time. I continued to use my junk ones with great success. They were visited as many times as the commercial ones. The rats came for regular feeds and the population dropped off. Hooray!

[rondust]

Your feed station is a cheap version of a comercial product.
The commercial baits are stronger but you can use the off the self versions but try the ones not using 'Warfrin' which is a blood thinner and toxic to anything in larger than controlled quantities.

You need to check how the rat population is doing as they may be dying in their burrows so cant be seen.

Get some kill traps too and fit them into the tubes the same way as your bait, dont set them but put bait food in them for a week so the rats get happy with the object. After a week set them (make at least 6) and use them with the baits.
Kill traps need to be checked and emptied regulary, also fresh bait all the time, chunky peanut past or nut based chocolate is yummy to rats.
Every 2 weeks leave them unset for a week, to let new comers get happy with them.
I'm confident you have made an impact, the Exterminator needs your cash so may mislead you.

[waynevanwijk]

Call me stubborn and obstinate if you wish, but regardless of what the rat expert said I left my bait stations out to see if the rats would show any interest. One of them was placed on my fence where I had seen rats running. I checked it today and all the bait was gone. Inside the ag pipe was a quantity of rat droppings. So, I can only assume that my design did work after all. I still have not found any dead rats though. The rat guy did say that the bait that I got from the supermarket was no good. Maybe he was right about that.

[waynevanwijk]

And now that the instructable has been up for a while I thought that I would post a comment on the effectiveness of the unit.
I still had lots of live rats and had found no dead ones so I called the council rat control guy. He explained that my bait stations will not work for 3 main reasons.
1. rats love to go through their own tunnels but are less likely to use one made by a person
2. the jar would be too claustrophobic for them
3. the ag pipe let water into the bait area and having wet bait is no good. Apparently rats are fussy with their food. Wet bait =bad, power cable = delicious. Go figure.

Anyway, I will leave the instructable up as a 'do not do'. I am still proud of my failure. It just shows how important a bit of research is to a design.

Wayne.