I'd prefer having a barn owl as a neighbor, but depend on old-fashioned snap traps baited with peanut butter. We keep four deployed in the yard and/or basement and catch one rat about every 10-14 days. As for cleanup, dead rats fit nicely in the plastic bags that newspapers are wrapped in. We double wrap 'em and toss the little carcasses in the freezer until trash day.

Catherine Alexander
Lakewood Neighborhood
South Seattle









-----Original Message-----
From: ZINGIE at aol.com
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 6:06 pm
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Re: Limits rats with Barn Owls?













Hi Tweeters,


?


Julia, I'm glad that you mentioned the dangers of rat poison in your last sentence. My dad was hiring a company to put out rat poison in our yard earlier this year. This made me very nervous and I called my vet who is a bird specialist. She said (as you also mentioned) that if the rat has not completely metabolized the poison by the time something (raptor, dog, cat) eats it then that second animal in turn gets poisoned. We took down the bait stations immediately?after hearing that. The companies will claim they do not harm wildlife or pets but...


I'd say removing easy to get compost, bird seed, etc would help deter rats without the dangers?of?possibly poisoning non-target animals. Of course it's more complicated if your neighbors are leaving out food.


?


Simone Lupson-Cook


Seattle, WA


Zingie at aol.com


?






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