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What do you recommend for rat bait? We have tried: chocolate, peanut butter, and tuna fish. All scorned. The traps are in secure tunnels made out of blocks and bricks in known runs.

They will eat the poison we put down but we'd rather trap them as no bodies rotting in the undergrowth or possibly eaten by another predator or, worse, someone's cat or dog.

Any ideas?

Rats are more atracted to smel than taste try Oxo or bit s of bacon

Rats avoid new stuff.  They have an extremely good mental map of their environment and they notice if anything changes and they avoid it, even if it's food.  It'll take quite a number of days before they're brave enough to try out your traps, but eventually they will.  Thank you for not using poison, for just the reasons you gave.

what are you going to do with the rats when you catch them?
( it's illegal to release them )
( it's illegal to drown them )

Today I came across a trap that I think must have been intended for a rat, as it was quite a lot bigger than a mouse trap.  Sadly, the victim was a beautiful blackbird.  What could I suggest as an alternative , please?

Unwashed: we (or rather my husband who is chief rat exterminator!) has already left the traps out for a fortnight with no results? Do you think we just have to be more patient?

Tonybloke: Well hopefully as they are good quality spring traps they will already be dead.  But my poor OH is checking regularly and prepared to finish them off - I think he was planing to bash them on the head or something. Why on earth is it illegal to drown them????

We have to do something as we have seen them trotting happily around the garden in daylight.

We've already done the obvious things like keeping all the chicken food secure (they don't free range and the run has rat-proof heavy-duty mesh) and I only put kitchen veg waste in a special (green Johanna) compost bin that again is rat proof (and I keep checking).

MARS BAR  works

I have watched a rat take a fat ball that I had hung up for the birds - perhaps that is worth a try.

Thanks for your advice everyone. We've some new possibilities to try, so here's hoping we will manage to get rid of some rats. I think we'll leave it be for a while first though, to let the rats really have a chance to get used to the new object/food in their territory.

Thanks again, Mandy.

A pest control chap on our local radio station today said they have best results with chocolate and raisins  ???