Best Rat Traps

There are all kinds of rat traps out there with their designs and mechanisms varying a lot depending on how they are intended to deal with rodents. There are lethal traps and live traps, there are ones that kill quickly and ones that often lead to slower and more agonizing deaths, and so on. What trap you’ll end up using depends largely on your particular situation as well as on your personal preferences. But to shed a bit more light on the different options on how to kill rats or release alive, let’s take a quick look at the few major types of rat traps:

Live cage rat traps

This is one of the more popular and also most humane options when it comes to capturing rats. Live cage traps can utilize several different trigger mechanisms but they all work on the same principle – you place the bait inside the trap on a special plate. The plate is sensitive to any and all motions so whenever someone touches the bait the plate triggers a spring or another locking mechanism that shuts the gate behind the rodent’s back.

Such live cage traps can be made out of wire mesh or from any other material but they need to be sturdy and be able to survive excessive chewing since captured rats will do anything they can to get out. It also helps if the locking mechanism is situated out of the captured animal’s reach so that it doesn’t get damaged.

The chief problems with live cage rats are:

1. Captured rats can damage the locking or trigger mechanisms and render the trap unusable for future occasions.
2. If you leave a rat in the cage for too long other rats around him will figure out that getting inside the cage is a bad idea and will avoid the trap from then on, thus rendering it less useful.

Live bucket rat traps

Another popular live trap option, bucket traps come in different models and designs, but they all work on the same idea – bait the rats to come to the edge of a big bucket then force them to fall inside the bucket and make sure that they can’t leave it. The most popular designs are roller traps that are made out of metal or plastic rolls laid over the bucket from which the rats will drop inside but there are other variants too. The advantage of such traps is that they are self-resetting and can capture multiple rats at once. Their main disadvantage is that if the rats are too big or too numerous or if the bucket is too small, the rats might be able to get out of it.

Another chief problem with both bucket rat trap and cage trap is that you’ll have to find a suitable way to deal with the captured animal, usually by transporting it away from your property into an unpopulated area.

Snap Traps

On to some lethal options, snap spring rat traps are the most well-known and classic type of rat traps. Similar to live cage traps they work by placing the bait on a trigger plate. However, once the plate has been triggered, instead of shutting a door behind the rat, the trap shuts a metal rod over the rat’s neck, usually breaking it instantly. These traps are considered a relatively “humane” option as they often kill the rodents instantly, but if the trap is not big enough or strong enough it may not do so. A lot of rat snap traps have interlocking jaws on their snapping tools to make sure that the prey won’t be able to get away should it survive the initial trap. This increases the traps’ effectiveness but also turns them into more of a “capture and torture” kind of trap than an instant-kill “humane” one.

Electronic “zapper” traps

Zappers are another type of traps that are supposed to kill rats instantly. They resemble cages but when a rat gets inside there is no door behind them that can capture them inside. Best electronic rat trap deliver powerful electric shocks to the animals inside of them with the intention of killing them instantly. When it works, this can be a relatively “humane” way to kill a rodent, but very often the electric shock is weaker than advertised and doesn’t instantly kill the animals (especially bigger and stronger rats). This can result either in a successful escape or in a slow and horrifying death. There are plenty of cases where the rats get slowly fried for several minutes until they eventually die in an agonizing way. Needless to say, even if you don’t care how the rats die, zapper traps need some extensive cleaning after each killed rat.

Glue rat traps

Glue traps take the cake when it comes to slow and agonizing deaths. These devices work on such a simple principle that even the word “device” is often too much for them. Glue traps typically consist of just a plate or a leather strap that has a thick layer of glue on top of it – and that’s it. All you need to do is place some bait in the middle of the adhesive and wait for rats to come for it and get stuck on the glue. If the adhesive is strong enough it will hold onto the rats either until you come to dispose of them or until they:

1. Rip their flesh or limbs off of it and bleed out;
2. Break their own necks in an attempt to escape;
3. Suffocate on the glue by accidentally sticking their noses in it;
4. Die from dehydration if you leave them there for long enough.

Needless to say, it’s clear why glue traps are largely regarded as the most horrific ways to hunt rodents. Still, if you are looking for effectiveness and effectiveness only, they are an option.

Finding the right rat trap isn’t a complicated process but it is a time-consuming one. Since you want to find the most effective tool for your situation, it’s smart to invest a good amount of time in it to make sure that you’ll get what you need.

The first and foremost thing to consider is the quality of the trap. It almost doesn’t matter what design or model you are going to choose if it is of poor quality. Of course, every manufacturer claims to offer high-quality products so you’ll, unfortunately, have to rely on consumer reviews and industry professional reviews. Both types have their drawbacks and biases but if you read enough of them you will start to get a clear picture of what’s worth buying and what – not so much.

Another thing to keep an eye on when it comes to quality is the products’ brands. Branding is not a sure-fire way to judge quality but it’s a thing to consider. Here are some of the brands we’d recommend: Havahart, Tomcat, Goodnature among others.

Aside from quality, the next question to ask is what type of trap you need:

• Do you want to capture rats in a humane manner instead of killing them? Consider a live cage or bucket trap.
• Do you want to kill rats in a quick and easy fashion? The classic snap traps are a good option.
• Do you want to get rid of large numbers of rats at once with no care for how gross or hard-to-look at it might get? Big glue traps have that potential.

Rat traps only work if the rats get inside of them and for that to happen, you’ll need a good bait. Fortunately, rats are omnivores so they eat just about anything. Unfortunately, rats are very smart and cautious animals so they are unlikely to get inside a large metal cage for something small and unappealing. The bait you use should be something that’s high on protein and that has a nice, attractive smell to it.

A lot of rat traps come pre-baited but we’d honestly advise you to find a good food bait on your own even if that’s the case. Also, keep in mind that different types of rats have different dietary preferences.

To find out what type of rat you’re dealing with you can use night vision cameras or simply refer to our articles on the different types of rats for more clues and tips.

Food baits for Roof rats

Once you’ve armed yourself with the needed knowledge, here are some food baits to consider for Roof (black) rats:

• Dried fruits
• Berries and fresh fruits
• Nuts
• Peanut butter
• Insects or slugs
• Snails
• Inedible nesting materials such as dental floss, pieces of fabric, etc

Food baits for Norway rats

For Norway (brown) rats, there is a larger variety of options to choose from since they are even less picky in their eating habits than their smaller Roof counterparts:

• Peanut butter
• Nuts
• Fruits or berries
• Bacon
• Other smelly meat products such as slices of sausage
• Chocolate
• Gumdrops
• Nesting materials
• Living with and using rat traps

How to properly use traps

Properly using rat traps – almost regardless of their type and design – is all about finding the right location. It doesn’t matter how well you’ve baited a rat trap if it is located away from the travel routes of your rat invaders they may never get inside of it.

Night vision cameras, non-toxic biomarker rat baits, as well as simply looking for scratch and claw marks or for rat droppings are all good ways of determining where you should set your traps. If you’re still not sure about the right locations, another good option is to just purchase more traps and set them up everywhere. Rats are not as curious as mice so they tend to keep their own travel routes and not explore too much if they don’t need to.

Aside from that, other good tips for rat control is to keep your property well-sanitized as you’re dealing with the rat infestation – the more dirt, food leftovers and other “rat attractants” there are, the less interested will the rats be in your baits and traps.

Another good thing to do is to seal off and maintain your property as you don’t want more rodent invaders coming in from the outside while you’re dealing with the ones that have already gotten through.

Lastly, almost regardless of what type of trap you’re using, remember to check up on them frequently. Dealing with killed or captured rats as soon as possible is important not only for “humane” reasons but also so that the other rats don’t notice and figure out the danger of the traps. Rats are incredibly intelligent creatures so if they see another captured or killed rat they can quickly understand what has happened and that they should avoid your future traps. This is also a good reason to consider using multiple different rat trap designs at once, as well as using a combination of rat trap and rat poison.

As you can see, the diversity in rat traps is almost as great as the diversity among rats. There are all kinds of designs, shapes, and sizes that rat traps can be made of, each better suited for different situations and intentions. Choosing the perfect rat trap for your situation can be time-consuming and challenging but suffice it to say that there is a perfect rat trap for any situation. That’s why it’s so important to research carefully before making your choice and why we decided to make this article in the first place.

So, to wrap things up, here are once again our Top 3 choices for the best rat traps out there:

This Kensizer Humane Live Cage Trap has all the hallmarks of a great cage trap – good quality materials, great wire mesh, perfect design, sensitive trigger mechanism, and fast door action. It’s large enough for most rats and it is very easy to use.

AB Traps Rat Snapper with a great EZ-Set Predator Snap Trap design that makes it very easy to set up. This trap also has a very fast snap and a deceptively strong bite, despite its plastic body. It’s not as big as other snap traps but if it’s big enough for your rodent invaders then it’s defiantly recommended.

Tomcat Rat Snap Trap is different than the AB Traps snap trap both in size and in design – it’s significantly larger and has a much more defined jaws that serve to keep the rodent trapped even if it has survived. With this trap, even the biggest and strongest rats will either be killed or trapped, with no exceptions.