Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Rats Are Smarter Than People

We (my Brothers and I) got into a discussion a few days ago about the effects of rats on farm buildings. We don't have trouble with mice or rats around our home farmstead because of the 30 or more cats we feed out by the barns. I do have 3 remote sites, one with a machine shed, that have rat problems. I have spent a small fortune buying different kinds of baits in an effort to plan their demise.
Rats are hard to kill with bait because when the first rat dies from the poison, the entire colony quits eating whatever it is that they've been eating. And I mean they quit eating it forever. That's why rat killing formula's are slow acting in an attempt to get them all to eat before they learn about the problem.
That's why I said to my Brothers, "Rat's are smarter than people, when rats figure out that what they are eating is killing them, they stop eating it."
I was going to give you an analogy here but I don't have time, I need to go fry a Twinkie for breakfast.

18 comments:

EV said...

Excellent! A+

A preacher friend of mine once told me his 12 y/o daughter had become spellbond by all the tales and lessons in the Bible. Clearly, he was very pleased by that and their discussions, her questions and observation. On one occasion, she noted, "Dad, all those people in the Bible are sooo stupid. Why don't they just do what God told them to do? Then they wouldn't have all those problems."

Anonymous said...

Seems if you were to poison a bit of everything they can find to eat there Cliff, they would starve themselves to death??

PinkCat said...

Oh well I better put down my deep fried battered mars bar. Darn it to heck those pesky rats are always right.

Take care xx

Anonymous said...

i have no clue what is going on but i am having a horrible time commenting on your blog. your picture for the last post is even gone. what is going on. those damn smart rats, i guess i need another piece of candy and maybe i can figure it out. lol

this is one-plus-twins by the way!

Felecia said...

(Just be sure you don't offer them coffee that's 'too' hot or a super-size option...then perhaps you can avoid all those nasty lawsuits!)

Very clever, Cliff!

Ralph said...

Cliff
My two eggs, sausage and buttered toast sounds healthy compared to yours.
Ralph

Paul Nichols said...

I'm probably going to die and go to M&M Heaven...

Rachel said...

I think you need to feed the Twinkies to the rats.

I didn't know rats were that smart. How about rat traps?

Anonymous said...

I'm happy if the rats just stay at the back of the property around the corn bins. At least that's what I tell myself that's where they live. Maybe I should get a cat or five.

Rhodent said...

Let me get this straight... YOU are saying that we could learn something from those rodents? LOL I can leave the fried Twinkies alone, but I am a Coca Cola addict!

I hope your family is planning another book of your post since the last publication... you could probably sell some, funny guy!

Miki said...

Hey, let me wipe the chocolate covered fried ice cream with the works off of my fingers so that I can type this....Now, WOW! I learned something new today. That iswhy we couldn't get rid of the Rats that had taken up residence under the shed!!!!!! Wait til I tell my hubby! Cliff, you are a wealth of knowledge, thanks.

poopie said...

Yeah, well. You only live ( on earth and with junk food ) once.

eyes_only4him said...

oh cliff,
how can u deface a twinkie?

Anonymous said...

I bet you could reel them in with one of those twinkies.

Jamie Dawn said...

Uh, what was that you said? I was frying bacon which was crackling really loudly and I was opening a bag of Cheetos and the bag was rustling so I couldn't hear you.

Unknown said...

Clean up the rat poison, buy some cheap cat food, and take some of those 30+ cats and colonize the remote sites. You can rig up those automatic feeder/waterers with a couple of old barrels. Shouldn't have to check 'em any more often than the rat bait.

Mountain Mama said...

I hear rats love fried chicken. A sales girl at my local Wal-Mart told me that she and her brothers used to tie a piece of chicken to fishing line, cast it to the area where rats lived, and when the rats came for the chicken they slowly reeled it in until the rats were close enough to shoot.
Of course they were eating the rest of the chicken while they waited.

Anonymous said...

I feel for you. We had awful coon problems, so bad I couldn't even blog about it. (Maybe in the future, it will seem funny.)
P.S. Your performance underwear reminded me of an old post of mine. I updated it with Halloween photos...