I need help with a rat I caught...
By jimeny
@jimeny (640)
Israel
April 28, 2011 6:58pm CST
So here's the thing-
I had a rat in my kitchen. It munched on the kitchen's cabinet doors, the door that lead to the shower, the dishes soap container and my cat food sack. (it also built a nest inside that sack, with some toilet paper and some other weird stuff)
Nothing worked against it. I used 3 sticky trap to try and catch it:
It managed to release itself from the first one (and left some fur behind)
It chewed its way out of the second one (and left my kitchen full of sticky trap pieces)
And didn't touch the 3rd one.
Then I decided to use the "big guns"- a metal trap.
Took few days until I caught that rat, but now that I did... I don't know what to do with it.
Anyone I asked so far told me I should drown it... but the thing is- I sort of feel sorry for that rat. I mean, it tries to live, just like me... how can I take the life of a creature when all it did was trying to survive?
I thought about releasing it somewhere away from my place, but someone told me that the rat likes my place because it feels there "at home", and that if I'll release it- it will surely come back and haunt me again.
What should I do?
4 responses
@SpikeTheLobster (6403)
•
29 Apr 11
I know how you feel: I once had 3 mice living in my kitchen and had to catch them (with humane traps) and decide what to do with them.
The trick is to take them far enough away before release. Rats aren't homing pigeons: they will live anywhere they can find food, shelter and perhaps a bit of warmth. They don't care if it's your kitchen or a sewer outlet - they're so darned smart and good at surviving that it makes no difference to them.
So, if you don't want to kill the poor little furry, take it out into the country and release it there (country is preferable so that it doesn't move into some other person's kitchen).
Or you could drop it in the dustbins behind a restaurant you hate.
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (63492)
• United States
2 May 11
I did that, released it MILES from my house, across several really busy streets and in a wild area where, I expect, it didn't live too long because it was used to a house not a wooded area. I hope whatever ate it lived to be a nice old age...
1 person likes this
@AKRao24 (27424)
• India
2 May 11
Hi Dear Jimeny! In fact I have made some similar posting few weeks back where in I have expressed my views about the trapped rat in the cage, which are quite similar to you! I too can't think of killing the rat got trapped in the cage as they you say they also o have the right to live on this earth. But then the fact is, rats can make our lives miserable by their actions. I retrieved my lost pen drive, watch, some small things all in my sofa where these rats have taken them to decorate their nests! They have spoiled lot of hings at my place including my sofa set, the wiring of my computer and the printer as a whole as on of the rat wanted to build a nest in it!
So what I do is I carry the trapped rat in my car few kilometers away from my house which is already is a secluded place and leave it in wild so that it can survive all by himself/herself with the lot of natural vegetation and other edibles like wild fruits and nuts! So far I think no rat has returned back from there! But then I am staying on the farm, I tend to get more new rats after few days I get rid of the old ones! Now frankly speaking the trapping of rats and leaving them in wild has become a routine in our lives! Thanks for the discussion!
@jimeny (640)
• Israel
4 May 11
Thanks for your reply, it was somewhat amusing...
I was thinking about getting a farm few years from now, but seeing as there are lots of rats in it (as you suggested), I suppose it's not for me. I barely handled one rat, so having new rats all the time... so not for me.
I hope you'll manage to get rid of them peacefully.
@Galena (9110)
•
29 Apr 11
it's nice that you don't want to kill the rat. as other people have said, they are resilient creatures, and can survive in most places. while it may struggle in a new place, it has a good chance of making a new life for itself if it's far enough away not to try and come back.
1 person likes this