It doesn’t always seem like it, but there are humane and cruelty-free ways to exclude rats from your home. While rats and mice are very annoying pests, we have to admit that they deserve to be treated humanely. And the least we can do is to find ways to make that happen. If you care about cruelty-free rat exclusion, here are 3 humane and effective ways to get rid of rats.
Mouse-proof your home
Excluding rats and getting them to stay out always starts with a proper and complete rat-proofing of your home. Rats and house mice are very small animals, and they can very easily squeeze through small inconspicuous holes around the house. Rats are also drawn to clutter because this provides them with cover and a nest to thrive and reproduce, plus a place where there is an abundance of food. With these in mind, you can rat-proof your home in 3 effective steps.
Step 1: get rid of potential food sources
Shelter and food are the major reasons why rats and mice invade people’s houses. These animals are hard-wired to survive, and they will go to any length to find food and water. If food and shelter are what attract pesky rodent pests to your home, eliminating these possible attractants will discourage rodents, right?
Yeah, you got it! But this can be tricky because rats and mice are so small and enter through small holes. Plus, they eat a wide variety of things, including books, trash, but especially crumbs and leftover food. If you properly and consistently store everything (both cooked and uncooked food) in rodent-proof containers and keep them where rats can’t reach them, the animals will have nothing to eat and be forced to go elsewhere.
Step 2: Remove clutter
The second process is to declutter. Remember that rats and mice also seek out clutter to act as a warm and cozy hideout. When there is nothing of that sort for them, they will be forced to search around and go out in search of a more conducive environment. Whether you have rats in the garage, attic or any other part of your house, removing clutter is the first step towards excluding them.
Step 3: find and seal all entry holes
And now the final step in rat-proofing your home. This last step is also the toughest and most challenging of the three because it involves very serious hands-on work. I like to call it search-and-seal, because you will literally have to sniff out the rodent routes around your house, trace their entry and exit points, find those small holes and seal them off. This is a very important part of any wildlife removal process, and to get the best results, it has to be done very carefully and accurately. Visit pestcontrolrat.com to learn more about humane rat removal.
Catch them with live traps
Rat-proofing your home is great for keeping rats out, but if you’re already dealing with a rat infestation, then you’ll have to go beyond that. With all the entry and exit holes sealed, the rats in your house will not magically disappear, they will have to be caught and removed. The most humane and cruelty-free method for removing rats is to do so with live traps. But not all live traps are cruelty-free. Effective and humane rat removal is much easier when you talk to professionals, you can find out more about these processes at Complete Wildlife Removal.
For instance, there is the Glue board which traps rats and mice alive, but it also subjects the animal to hours of torture. If you have ever seen a rat/mouse trapped in a glue board, with its hands and feet glued to the board, you’ll have a better understanding of how cruel it is. A more humane alternative is the mouse box, or box trap.
These are boxes designed to trap rats and mice alive without inflicting any type of pain or causing any suffering. The rodent walks into the box, and the door closes to trap it there, then you find the rats and remove it. That is obviously the most humane and cruelty-free way to trap a mouse.
Release them outdoors
To finally exclude the rodents, you’ll have to take them away. It’s best to take them no less than 3 miles from your home, so they don’t find their way to your property. It will be unfair to release them on someone else’s property or a residential area, it’s best to release a trapped animal in the woods and away from humans.