For effective pest control you need to determine what type of rat is scurrying around your attic.
Roof rat predorters.
Roof rats are known by a variety of other names including palm rats fruit rats ship rats and alexandrian rats.
Dogs will chase rats off but other than spooking them they probably won t get rid of them.
Cats on the other hand are the domestic animal that won t just chase rats off but will follow them to all the little places you can t pursue.
The roof rat is smaller than a norway rat growing to be between 6 and 8 inches in body length with an additional 6 to 8 inches in the tail.
In less urban settings rats are preyed on by weasels foxes and coyotes.
Whether escaping the frigid cold predators or the extreme heat once you have them inside your house it is important to identify this issue before it is too late.
Keeping roof rats out is therefore a difficult task.
Various snake species also prey upon rats.
Both roof rats and norway rats a stockier variety of rat can infest homes.
Outdoors rats face a variety of predators.
These predators have little effect on the control of the black rat population because black rats are agile and fast climbers.
The roof rats usually enter a house or a garage to seek shelter from predators and don t need a large hole or place of entrance since they can gnaw their way in through metals such as aluminium wood plastic and even drywall or climb their way in through foliage wires pipelines etc.
Roof rats become sexually mature between two and five months producing four to six litters per year that consist of six to eight young each.
In addition to agility the black rat also uses its keen sense of hearing to detect danger and quickly evade mammalian and avian predators.
However this may not be the best option to get rid of rats if they ve already made it inside the house obviously urine doesn t smell great so this is better as an outdoor solution.
Birds of prey are famous for feeding on rodents.
In these environments large birds of prey including hawks falcons and owls feed regularly on rodents.
Roof rats have smooth fur pointy noses and large dark eyes.
Hawks and falcons hunt by day and owls typically hunt by night.
The red tailed hawk buteo jamaicenis is north america s most familiar and widespread large hawk.
Owls are particularly formidable predators as their nocturnal behavior ensures that they are most active when rats go out in search of food.
In dense populations these rodents will establish a social hierarchy wherein dominant males mate more than subordinate males.
Most species of rat look similar and it can be difficult to tell between a roof rat and the common norway rat but there are some telltale ways to distinguish between the two.
Besides causing damage to the home they can spread germs and disease.
The common lifespan of these rodents is about one year.
Larger predators for controlling rats.
