Pack Rats!

Bushy Tailed Woodrat.

Winter in the Desert is generally pretty quiet. If you are retired as I am, life is much easier. I just read, do my exercises, catch up on TV and throw wood on the fire, and three days a week I get the mail- 6 miles up the road.

Right now in the world there is a Biblical proportion swarm of Locust eating everything in sight, so my problem with a Pack Rat is pretty small potatoes.

Pack Rats here come in three sizes, from Chipmunk size to LARGE rodent. Bigger than a lot of Squirrels. The bigger they are, it appears - the smarter. They have been known to cause such anger and desperation that people have been driven to take up firearms and actually try to kill them through the walls, by taking "sound shots". They also seem to have to chew a lot to keep their teeth to a manageable size. They also only come out at night when you are trying to sleep.

When we moved here, the place had been vacant most of the time and the Pack Rats were every where. Some of these things weigh more than a pound so the running foot steps through the ceilings can drive you a bit buggy and wild eyed. In Klamath it took Ferrets to get them to move out of the house. Here I am a bit luckier and the walls are solid. I long ago bought an industrial strength "Sonic" sound machine guaranteed to drive Mice and Spiders crazy and installed it in the attic, where it has done a yomans job. Nothing can stand it for more than a few hours. Of course there is the back porch which has suitable habitat for them. So I watch the Dogs, if they are interested in smelling around back there, its time to bait the trap.

I have noticed that I had a visitor and I was at a bit of a disadvantage because it got cold enough at night to freeze the water in trap containers. Pack Rats can jump quite well, so hard water was a problem. I have a couple of live traps that I use in the winter, and for Josie's entertainment, but Mice can set them off, so I prefer to not use them. I also had one in the hangar but I did manage to catch it after two tries. Pack Rats like Apples, so they work out well for the "GangPlank" trap. However the one on the back porch wasn't falling in the water but was eating the bait. I set up a game camera to find out what my opponent was. It soon became obvious that this guy was just too big for my setup. I tried changing the tub around since he accessed the tub from the wall, but he didn't trust the plank, and just reached out and held onto the wire to eat his apple.

Before changing the bait wire the third time he had snookered me, I decided to use a Rat trap to see if I could catch him with that. I found the trap sprung, but no Rat. I was just about to make a wire that set on the bottom of the tub, under water so that he had to use the plank instead of the wire, when I found him dead on the floor under a board. Apparently concussion will kill you as well. What ever, Dead is dead, and I will take it.

https://vimeo.com/393085213

password-  owyheeflyer

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