13-05-2004, 04:04 PM
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tomato leaves eaten.... (cats)
writes:
I've been buying those single story cat houses from Wal-mart lately.
I have two so far, and they are never unoccupied!
The cat tower here is six feet tall, about two feet wide, and more
expensive than a sane purchaser would consider.g It has many "nooks"
and ramps to the next nook as well as a hideaway at the bottom. They have
loved it. They can bounce around in it almost as good as a tree. It has
carpet floors on the flat surfaces and carpet on the lower outsides for
scratching posts. Ours came from PetCo five or six years ago. While
expensive at purchase, it's like the automatic litter box, worth every
penny. Of course, through the years, the litter box has paid for itself
in saved litter, but the cat tower has in entertainment. :-) Cats, given
climbing places, can be so easy to please. It's been my intention to put
a shelf above the cat tower and door for them to lay on, but good
intentions . . . you know the rest.
Thanks for the awesome drowning trap idea!!!
Expanding on what others said about drowning them, it seemed a logical way
to do it given the characteristics of PVC. The test will be how many will
go into it before they get wise to it. Remember, when emptying and
resetting it, to handle it with leather gloves to keep your scent off it.
Maybe even rub the gloves in the dirt, etc., before handling it to keep it
as "earthy" smelling as possible. My grandfather always said they won't
go to where there is fresh human scent for food because they figure out
quickly that fresh human smell is a trap and not a free meal; how true it
is, one can only guess. However, he knew lots of stuff most people didn't
(and was a rotation farmer with higher yields while others spent $$$ on
fertilizers). He was quite amazing in his knowledge about practical
things that produced impressive results.
Of course, one must make it easy for the critters to get into the pipe
(next to a shelf, table, roof, etc.) while the pipe long is enough they
can't get out by stretching/jumping (though I doubt they can do much
jumping from water). From all I hear, they are definitely the most
intelligent of our pests. :-(
I'm thinking if grain/dog food attracts them, a piece of heavy paper (even
newspaper fastened with one clothespin only, don't want it too secure)
with the bait on the paper laying across the top might get them into the
pipe, the idea being the paper is light enough they will just fall in but
it looks safe before they step onto it. Being as curious as hungry
animals can be, just something inside (like peanut butter) might do the
trick without the extra work. Peanut butter works surprisingly well for a
variety of critters. With rats, canned cat/dog food or even tuna fish oil
might do the same thing.
Good luck to all of you with a known rat population.
Glenna
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