Made a rat trap today.......

[Snadger]

Some joker had left a choccie bar in with their payment for eggs in my honesty box!
Thinks????????? what can I do with that?...........I know, i'll make a rat trap!

1/4 filled a large bucket with water. Gaffer taped each end of the choccie bar onto the centre of a cane which I gaffer taped across the bucket.
Made a set of steps out of bricks leading up to the top edge. Layed a trail of mixed corn up the steps and som stuck to the sticky bit of the gaffer tape. Sprinkled a bit of poultry spice along the trail also.
Hopefully Roland will follow the trail up the steps til he comes to the cane, he will then try and walk along the cane toget the choccie, whence he will fall of into the water and drown...............possibly.

My mate reckons the bucket isn't deep enough and he will scran the choccie, jump in for a swim to clean his whiskers, and then jump out again (grabbing a towel on the way home to dry himself)

We shall see!

[MaureenHall]

I hope you set up a webcam to record it

[Bramble-Poultry]

mission improbable!

had you thought snadge that some rats live in sewers, big tunnels that fill occasionally with water. i am sure that deep down their survival instinct will mean that they will swim. Of course, if you drop a couple of live wires into the bucket and zap that sucker, that would be entertaining.......

[Pies]

Well the rat will thank you for the choccie bar

YouTube - Rat Swimming - Cooling off on a hot day

[Hazel at the Hill]

Some joker had left a choccie bar in with their payment for eggs in my honesty box!
Thinks????????? what can I do with that?...........

Well if I was presented with an unexpected choccie bar , I can honestly say the the very last thing that I would have thought to do with it was to make a rat trap!

[Eco-Chic]

What a terrible waste of chocolate.

Ever heard of rats deserting sinking ships? I don't think they had their own special lifeboats

[Snadger]

You lot have no idea of the things the jokers at the allotments get up! The choccy bar is probably laced with laxative or something and I'd rather give a rat the sh*ts than myself!

[Bramble-Poultry]

besides - it all depends on what chocolate it is...

hersheys - rat bait,
frys - eater,
cadbury - some eater/some rat bait.

i can see where snadge is coming from

[RichmondHens]

I've thought about doing a rat trap along those lines using a corn cob on a rod that will spin the rat off and into a deep container of water - it's apparently a successful method for catching rats in Africa.

[Hilary B]

I would think that for a bucket trap to work the water level would have to be a bit below the top of the bucket, so they can't climb out. If they can reach the edge of the bucket while swimming, the trap can't work.

[HayleyB]

Waiting to hear what Ratty thought of the choccie and whether he returned the towel

[moola]

Rats are ace swimmers (we've seen them in our pond) but if they are in a bucket of water maybe they won't have enough of an area to propel themselves upwards to get out of the bucket? Hope it works for you

[Snadger]

Rat bait all gone......choccy bar part nibbled......need a bigger bucket I reckon!

Plan B..........bigger (ie wider and deeper) bucket. Cane through a spinning coke tin smeared with peanut butter. If I wanted to kill rat there and then I could add antifreeze to the water (Ethylene Glycol is deadly)............will report back once I've made and set it up!

Your days are numbered, Roland!!!!!!!!!!

[RichmondHens]

The "bucket" has to be deep enough so the rat can't climb out. The water needs only be deep enough to drown the rat. An actual bucket won't be big enough. You need a taller (?deeper) container - maybe an old kitchen swing bin or something tall like that, and then you sink it in the ground (so lots of digging) so the rat runs across the ground, spies the tasty treat, jumps on, spins off and drops into the water. Or at least that's the theory!!!!

[Snadger]

The "bucket" has to be deep enough so the rat can't climb out. The water needs only be deep enough to drown the rat. An actual bucket won't be big enough. You need a taller (?deeper) container - maybe an old kitchen swing bin or something tall like that, and then you sink it in the ground (so lots of digging) so the rat runs across the ground, spies the tasty treat, jumps on, spins off and drops into the water. Or at least that's the theory!!!!

I have loads of various sized containers at the allotment (once a scrounger and hoarder always a scrounger hoarder!) including about a dozen blue water barrels so I'm pretty sure I can come up with something!