Ben the Hanger Rat, end of the line.

As you are aware I had put out the traps in the hanger for the Packrat that was using my bench, but nothing ever got into them. I switched to fruit for bait, and while I was catching Rats outside of the hanger, I never got any in the hanger itself. For a bit, I thought that he was going out of the hanger to eat, and that I had gotten him. I even built a water trap that consisted of a bucket with about 5 inches of water in it. A pop can that spanned the top that had a wire running through it so that it would turn if anything stepped on it. I had a board leading up to the top and had smeared Peanut butter and strawberry jelly on it. The mice jump onto the can and the can dumps them into the water. All it has caught so far is two mice. Oh well, any less mice at all is a bunch better.

The steel leg hold trap with the Kiwi on it was still set on my bench and was getting no action at all. The Victor rat trap with a small piece of onion on it had been sitting there all along and was getting no action either. The paper plate with the Oatmeal in it was getting hit each night.  I still had a rat living on top of the fuel tank under the Motor home, so I switched to a slice of Fuji Apple in the live trap that I had set under it.

This morning when it got light enough to see, the apple slice had proved too much for the Motor home rat.

What a relief to catch this guy. They are so distructive it is unbelievable. They can reduce wiring to its basic elements in a short time.

Well, that made my day. I went on to do my morning chores. I put the hawks out and went in to the hanger to check the traps, mostly out of habit. When I went into the hanger its self, I was struck by the Packrat stink that seemed to permeate the entire hanger. I looked on the work bench and the Victor trap was missing. Josie and I started looking around and finally found the rat and the trap back by the plane. The surprising part was that the rat wasn't dead.They are tough critters. That Victor doesn't mess around, but it wasn't enough to kill him even with a direct hit to the neck.

That was just fine with Josie, no body asked the Rat what he thought. All in all it was a good day. Josie got two rats to play with and I have two less Rats to deal with. Josie is coming right along with the program. She was one year old yesterday, and maturing more and more. One of the rats bit her on the lip, but she never flinched. She just yipped and changed her hold. She is beginning to look for them now. She is the one that clued me in to the one living under the Motor home.

That makes 10 Rats to date, and the summer is young.