Rodents chew

A while back a friend, Cindy, discovered the mice / rats had chewed through several of her plastic and cardboard food containers. The rats had even chewed up her stash of bar soap! ‘Why would they eat soap?’

Rodents chew… it does not have to be food that they chew on, wood or soap, they just crew on anything regardless, even if they can not smell food on or in the object.

The best thing to do, is store your provisions and supplies in metal containers. Metal trash cans and wall lockers work well. Number 10 cans stack well and are hard for rats to chew through. The next best would be expanded metal lined walls configured such that the rat would have to chew through the mesh before they got to the wood structure of your stage closet. Yes, I know that is not practical. Another design is to have a room made of concrete or cement blocks and a well fitting metal door. While that would be nice on several levels, but most homes are just not made that way.

The most practical thing to do is keep the pantry area clean and tidy without hiding spots. Outside keep the grass cut and the hedge trimmed to limit hiding spots. Have a couple of cats around. Keep them well enough fed so they are tame and friendly with you, yet hungry enough so if one of those little varmints comes around that the cat will eat them.  If for whatever reason you don’t have pets [or if they will not hunt] you will have to rely on traps baited with peanut butter or poisons.   I don’t like poisons because pets, kids or adults may get a hold of some and that is just not a good idea. If you go the trap or poison route, I would wait to deploy it until you see sign of rats in the area.

So what system do we use? In our long term, dry pack, area we use #10 cans because they stack and travel well. Of course we have standard wet pack cans and jars too. In the semi active area we do make use of Mylar, 2 L coke bottles, other plastic and the store package it came in. All of it is either in cabinets or on metal shelves. So far we have not had any issues with varmints.

A side issue along these lines is to keep several rat sized traps on hand to supplement your food supply.  In many areas of the world rat meat is a staple in the diet. ;] As far as placement goes, place the traps near the wall as mice and rats travel along it. The traps do need a small modification that you have to make is to add either an eye or a hole to secure the trap to a heavy object so that if the rat, squirrel or prairie dog can not drag it off if the trap does not kill it outright OR so that another animal can not drag your trap off so you lose it. NOTE: while the system of  LAWS that we live under are still in effect fish and game enforcement officers, AKA game wardens, can arrest you if you trap anything other than mice and rats – YOU are responsible for staying within the laws of your land.

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