Rat Hunting

[carrotstick]

I guess this would be along the lines of prairie dog popping or varmint hunting. So I think this fits in here. Im just excited and had to share my success. If it goes somewhere else, mods, do youre thing. So my wife and I are doing the backyard chickens thing. We started about 6 months ago and its been fun to raise these little, ungrateful, puffy bastards into the large, ungrateful, puffy bastards. We've never had any problems with raccoons or neighborhood cats, or any larger animals for that matter. I'd say the only problem we've had is the attraction of rats. Now I believe that these little pricks showed up after a few months of flock raiser being thrown out a few times a day and not being eaten to its entirety by said chickens. They wont be laying until the spring but I have read that rats will occasionally harass the eggs. I cant have that. Now, Ive done the rat poison thing but Im not too fond of finding dead rats strewn about my lawn or the idea of one of my kids or dogs finding one before I do. To remedy this I have started hunting the bastards down. I live within city limits mind you so Im limited to my damn airguns:mad:. My wife had shot a few with a bb gun but they seemed to just get spooked and return later. After some rummaging in the garage today I came across my old paintball stuff and after playing around with some things and found a co2 can that was still about half full and immediately decided to up my game in the rat killing department. After procuring some of the oldest boys marbles, which turned out to be pretty easy once I told him what they were for, I had to get them to fit into the barrel without rolling out. How do you get marbles to fit into a paintball gun and shoot accurately you ask? Duct tape:dirol:. Two strips wrapped around them along the horizontal and vertical axis. So, after tinkering for awhile and baiting the hole with a handful of feed I was sitting in a chair in front of the largest hole they had dug into the old chicken run. I only got one today, but I think this is a war that is far from over.

http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu155/thebaughers/photo1-1.jpg (http://s643.photobucket.com/user/thebaughers/media/photo1-1.jpg.html)
The old Stingray paintball gun. Now named Rat Killer.

http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu155/thebaughers/photo2.jpg (http://s643.photobucket.com/user/thebaughers/media/photo2.jpg.html)
Casualty no. 1

[R.P.]

That's cool. I killed a few large field rats a while back with a spade shovel. They eat more chicken feed than the chickens do.

[Airhasz]

If you think that's exciting you should hunt down a large rutting whitetail buck in November with a bow and a quiver of arrows.

[Gadsden11]

I like it. I have been battling chipmunk myself. Head shots with BB's do the trick. You could put some paintballs into the freezer also. Might save you some time with the tape. Happy hunting.

[Vic303]

Good quality snap traps with peanut butter, screwed down to the stringers on the fence. The stringers are the rat-highway around here. No fuss, no muss, and I don't lose any sleep waiting on the little bastages to come out at night.

[carrotstick]

First off, I have to say that getting a rat with a shovel is impressive considering how quick they are. Second, I've never been good with a bow. I have one and practice often but I'm no where near comfortable enough with it to hunt. I'll stick with my rifle. Also, I've tried the old school mouse traps but my wife found a rat in one once that had its head exploded by the bar and she said never again. Besides, I think this could be a good pseudo varmint hunting activity to do in city limits. As sad as that is.

[ryr8828]

Back in the 80's I had a terrible problem with rats eating my dog food. I still had the old barn then and they were so thick I could smell them, and the smell was very bad.
I found their holes and blocked all but 2, then ran a garden hose into one end and turned it on. Sat by the other end in a lawn chair and shot them with a .22 when they came out. Ran out of .22 and unholstered my .357 and killed some more. I bet I killed 15 rats. Had a hard time not choking from the smell.

I burned the old barn down and quit using automatic feeders for my dogs and that solved my rat problem.