Try this :
Shallow pans or bowls baited with corn meal, brown sugar, and plaster of
Paris. The mixture is most effective when it consists of 2/3 of corn
meal and a sixth each of brown sugar and plaster of Paris. First, mix
the corn meal and plaster of Paris to ensure that plaster of Paris is
spread evenly throughout the mixture. Soft brown sugar makes mixing easier.

Instant Karma will get you, but you will most likely get the rats.
As well you can sell these furry little blokes at the local market

PS leave plenty of water.

0tterbot wrote:
"John Savage" wrote in message
...
"0tterbot" writes:
I just think snap traps are the best
way to go with rodents, in the absence of predators. and just lately my
dog
has been stepping up to the plate re our mice (which makes a nice change
:-)
I find rat traps to be too impractical. They are difficult to place in
position when set to a hair trigger.

true, and also rats are very smart. you may not be able to catch them all
before they've observed good reasons to stay away from traps.

Tanglefoot is a sticky resin that you apply using a caulking gun to bits
of scrap timber, old paint-tin lids, tree trunks, or whatever. Apparently
it is not water-soluble.

erg. right. interestingly, we all perhaps have a tendency to get a bit
either emotive or ruthless here. i find the idea of drowning them once
trapped on sticky stuff a little distressing, whereas i don't find my method
(outlined below in response to ymc's new mouse problem) at all problematic.
i also find the idea of forgetfulness about the trap a little bothersome.
then again "humane" traps are likely to create the same problem.

We were talking about rat traps set around the house. Now you are talking
about animal traps set kilometres or tens of km from the house. Big
difference.

true, but there IS that tendency in humans to be neglectful about following
through, in either case. we DO know this is a strong tendency in many
people.

The old rabbit trap was banned because the trap is cruel, not the trapper.
Its steel jaws crush the leg, causing the animal to needlessly suffer. My
understanding is that rubber-jawed traps are still allowed; maybe I'm
wrong. As for trapping wild dogs by the leg, some dogs will gnaw the leg
off to effect an escape, so leg trapping of dogs is not only cruel but can
be self-defeating if it leaves a maimed dog to survive on the only food it
can now catch -- slower-moving sheep or calves instead of roos or rabbits.

Besides, foot traps are so indiscriminant that they can catch and maim
untargetted animals, including the grazier's own dog. It was not uncommon
for pastoralists to set rabbit traps around lamb carcasses to catch
eagles,
too, before the eagles' real worth was appreciated.

i just think it's fair to say that leg-traps are just unacceptable all
around. the idea of catching mice/rats by the feet is probably just too
similar for my taste.. and i don't like the idea of not following through.

having said all that, we HAVE in the past resorted to poison for smart rats
that refused to be caught any other way. as well as the fact that it is most
unkind as you pointed out previously, it creates problems of it's own (bad
smells & maggots from dead rats in walls, etc.) ime, there's a variety of
instant karma that results from poisoning things.
kylie