Raticator Max Rodent Zapper - SUPER DUTY Electronic Rat Trap / Mouse Trap Humanely Exterminates Rodents

I set two of these traps up a few days ago. One was under the house in a very tight crawl space (exhale to get under one of the ducts) and had a Foscam IP camera watching it. The camera photo sequences showed a pair of rats going by a foot above the trap on a ledge and drain pipes. In both traps I tried peanut butter in a bottle cap with a small chunk of bacon, and then buttered toast with sardine. Didn't work.What I finally did and would suggest to others is identify what they are feeding on and use only that as bait. Im my case they had found a box of dog treats. I put a few pieces in the back of the trap, one small piece (pea sized) two inches inside the trap, some crumbs around the outside and a few more tiny pieces on top. I also moved the trap immediately adjacent to their travel path and perhaps the most important addition was moping up some of their dried urine with a damp paper towel and wiping it on both inside and outside of the trap.An hour later I sat down to check the camera and wow, there he was sniffing the top of the trap. He reached out and took a crumb off the top and disappeared. He returned and this time had to put a foot out inorder to reach the next crumb. A couple more passes and now he was bold enough to walk on the top of the trap and look down at the treat in the entrance.A minuet passed and this time he was on the ground licking up the tiny pieces of dog treat. Then a careful grab of the one inside, smelling the inside top and bottom of the trap, then one foot in, departed, back, another foot in, departed, and finally just walked in. ZAP! Quick and clean.Sorry for the dramma but I've lost a lot of money and sleep to these guys. My advice is do everything you can think of including putting their scent inside the trap. These guys are super smart and very cautious. Once they identify a safe food source and a safe path they stay with it. Four stars because it finally worked, but not 5 because they really don't explain how hard it can be to make it work.A week later:Unfortunately more than one rat to catch. This (these) are much smarter. Every night they have taken the dog treats around and 3" into the trap, but never gone to the back (which activates the trap). We are closing in on a week of no success. Today I go to pick up a few ugly old wooden ones (much better that the Tom Cat clam shell ones).Update: A knowledgeable person tells me a clean trap is better. I am delighted to say I have run out of rats to test this on but feel it is important to add the info directly to this review. Good luck to all.Update: Another comment advises this:Rats tend to be very cautious, as you observed on the camera. We recommend pre-baiting the trap, and leaving it off for a day or two. This will get the rats used to going in and out for a free meal ticket. When you replace the bait, turn the unit on, and you will likely start catching your rats quickly, often multiple times per day.

We had a rat problem in our chicken run, where rats had been tunneling up through the dirt floor and consuming enormous amounts of expensive, organic poultry feed. We already had a concrete foundation on the run, so we excavated the floor (found a number of rat nests with about 30 baby rats) and poured a concrete floor. Over the next week I found a few holes where the rats had chewed thru the wood around coop windows and such to gain entry. We eventually blocked all these holes and I'm pretty sure the rats can't get in anymore, but I do find them at night sitting outside the coop windows, hanging onto hardware cloth or running across the roof. I really want to kill these rats. I set the Raticator up underneath the coop, and it took 3 days to get my first kill. I used chicken feed as bait. It took a few more days after that for my second kill, then I got a few more every night in a row, along with a mouse.From what I've read, you rarely have just one or two rats; you've got a whole colony. So I figure I'm in this for the long haul. I've also read that rats are afraid of new things, so you should bait the trap with food that they've been eating already, and expect it to take at least a few nights for your first kill. I was worried that the Raticator wouldn't work at all, am very pleased that it does. One thing to note tho is that I haven't been able to just shake the dead rat out of the trap like they show on the instructions. The rat tail hangs out but the rat itself always gets stuck. I had never dealt with rats at all and this was a bit horrifying at first, but I've found that the best way to get it out is to step on the tail and yank the trap away with my hands.Chickens love rat meat, so no way do I want to use conventional poison, but there is a rat poison called Terad3 that's made of vitamin D, which will kill a rat or mouse, but not chicken, dog, cat, human. Along with the Raticator, I set up 2 bait stations with Terad3, and it took a week or so, but something's definitely eating it regularly now.My goal is to keep rats out of the coop entirely, so I lock up feed every night. In the morning I put the feeders on the concrete floor of the run, where I can sweep up anything that's spilled. If a rat makes it into the coop I don't want it to find any reason to hang around. This rat trap works very well set up under my chicken coop, but I would also be comfortable using it inside the coop. The opening's not so big that a chicken could harm itself. I wouldn't set it up near chicks tho. I have cats that spend some time outside during the day, so I shut the Raticator off during the day. I think it's possible that a cat poking around with a paw could get a shock - and with the dead rat smell, the cats are always interested in the trap.

It works. This is a heavy duty raticator. The raticator is the same as the rat zapper. I bought all 3 to check them out. They all work much better than glue traps, live traps and the old fashion mouse/rat trap spring thing. Catches bugs too which is someone annoying but gets the mice too. Fortunately I just had mice, not rats. BTW - Cotton balls soaked in peppermint oil wrapped in steel wool works to keep mice away. Stuff it in any hole/crawl space and once a week or so rejuvenate the cotton ball with peppermint oil. Best of all is to make your house mouse proof by closing up all the entrance ways to your house/building. These traps (rat trap, raticator, rat zapper) plus tossing the perppermint oil around has worked to get rid of our mouse problem. I am now working at closing up the entrance ways. I will then use live traps which are somewhat humane - more so then the zappers - which aren't really humane at all. Killing things are not humane but I choose to stand my ground in the mice war. I've used live traps before (with peanut butter) but this time for some reason they weren't working. Think that was cause I had so many devices out and about. Good luck - a mouseless domicile is on the horizon.

Not caught 1 rat