Why Your Rat Baits Don’t Work

Rat infestations can be hard to deal with even when you have the right tools at hand. This is because rats are cunning and paranoid, and will often learn to avoid dangerous areas in their environment, even if they do not particularly understand while those areas need to be avoided. In this article, we’re going to go over the reasons why your rat baits might not be working.

The wrong type of bait

Believe it or not, rats can be picky eaters. They will try to go for the best food that they can find in the surrounding area. Sure, if there is nothing great, they will resort to cannibalism, but if they have a choice they will pick food that is high in nutrition. Rats have an omnivorous diet, and they need protein, fats and carbs in equal measure. This makes peanut butter in particular very effective bait, because it has a lot of calories, protein, fats and carbs.

The wrong location

Baits have to be placed in the right location, or else the rats will simply ignore them. Rats are extremely risk averse, and if there is food somewhere out in the open, in a location that would expose them, the rats would rather avoid it and look for a different source of food. You can also decrease the efficiency of a bait by leaving it in the same location for too long. Once a rat sees another rat dying, it will tend to avoid the location or the object where the other rat has died. Generally speaking, you want to place the bait under your furniture, along rat walkways, in drawers, and in other dark areas that are frequented by rats. You also want to move any bait that has successfully killed a rat, and maybe replace the type of bait used.

Not changing the approach used throughout the control process

Sometimes, a control method will simply not yield dividends when dealing with rats. At this point, it’s time to switch things up. Try different baits, different locations, and even different methods until you find something that the rats are willing to go for. Eventually, you will find the right approach and you will be able to get the rat population down. For more information about rat baits, or if you have a rat infestation in the home that needs to be removed by a pro, contact us today.