Collection: Best Rodent Baits, Traps, & Devices

Which Rodent Control Products are the Best?

Rats and mice are everywhere, in numbers much larger than most people would care to imagine. Many scientific approximations of rats alone put their world-wide numbers roughly about the same as the human population...a little over 7 billion rats. Rodents are directly responsible for transmitting several diseases, among them the Plague, Rat Bite Fever, Hantavirus, Hemmorhagic Fever, Salmonellosis, and others. Their impacts have proven detrimental to populations of certain organisms and have in some ways adversely impacted the ecological balance of the planet.

Effective rodent mitigation requires a cooperative, community-wide effort. The more players we have involved in a responsible approach to eliminating rats, mice, and other rodents in the environment, the greater our collective efforts become. Professor Pest's Rodent Control Guide provide additional insights into rodent control tips and best practices along with recommendations for how to get rid of rats and mice fast.

GUIDE: 4 Steps To Eliminating Rats & Mice

1. Rodent trapping and removal (quickly eliminating existing populations of rats and mice);

2. Ongoing rodent reduction (ensuring populations of rats and mice in the exterior environment remain low or non-existent);

3. Habitat modification (taking measures inside and outside the structure to make the environment unsuitable for habitation from rats and mice;

4. Exclusion (sealing off any and all potential rat or mouse points of entry).

Pest Control Everything provides access to some of the most effective and most popular rodent control devices on the market to help with your mouse and rat control needs. Remember that most rodenticide products (rat or mouse baits) need to be housed in a separate tamper-resistant bait station to keep them safely secured from people, pets, and non-target organisms.

If you are unsure about how and where to safely apply rodenticides for killing rats or mice, please click here to find a local rodent control professional in your area.

Which Traps Work Best for Mice?

Unlike rats, which tend to be cautious of newly introduced things into their environment, mice are much more curious and inquisitive by nature. This behavioral difference between rats and mice allows for a different trapping approach in order to quickly eliminate mice. When mice are found inside a home or building, rarely is it just a single mouse to contend with. A typical mouse litter may contain 5-12 mouse, with established nests commonly containing more than 25 members.

With this in mind, the best approach to quickly getting rid of mice is to incorporate a series of traps with the capacity to catch multiple mice at the same time. Expanded Trigger Mouse Snap Traps can be very effective, but are only able to catch one mouse at a time. So it is often advisable to use those in combination with other types of traps and/or be prepared to set many snap traps at once. For easier setting, the Mini T-Rex Mouse Trap is also an option. In addition to snap trap devices, glue boards or sticky traps can speed up the mouse elimination process. Just keep in mind that unlike snap traps, sticky traps typically do not result in an immediate kill of the mouse, instead leaving them stuck and alive on the trap for a period of time. This may or may not be practical in all situations. Several multi-catch devices are available as well that are designed to capture multiple mice at the same time, usually in chamber and alive for a period of time before being removed or discarded.

Which Traps Work Best for Rats?

Whereas mice are curious and inquisitive, rats tend to be much more cautious and sensitive to new things (such as traps) introduced into their environment. This behavior often leads inexperienced rat trappers to find themselves discouraged to discover their snap traps triggered without catching any rats. To overcome this obstacle, it is typically advisable to begin a rat trapping program with pre-baiting, whereas multiple rat trap devices are introduced into the rat-infested environment with attractive baits such as dried fruits or nuts without any of the rat traps being set. This pre-baiting technique allows the rats to familiarize themselves with the traps and become accustomed to feeding from the triggers with being spooked. Once feeding has been established (usually within 3-5 days), it's time to set the traps.

As with trapping for mice, trapping for rats should include an aggressive approach with multiple trap devices in strategic locations near observable runways, burrows, edges, corners, or nest sites. Expanded Trigger Rat Snap Traps and/or T-Rex Rat Traps are two excellent options for rat trapping. Sticky traps can also be a useful tool when dealing with rats, but tend to be less consistently effective than when used for mice primarily due to their size. Adult rats are often able wriggle (or gnaw) themselves free from many sticky trap devices.

How To Set an Expanded Trigger Rat Snap Trap...

When to Use Poison for Rats or Mice...

Poison (rodenticide baits) for control of rats or mice can be an integral part of any successful rodent control program. But it is important to understand how rodenticides function and what they are intended to do in order to achieve optimal results. Rodenticides come in many forms, each with different practical applications. There are rodenticide bait blocks, typically with a hole through the middle of each block so that it can be safely secured to a metal rod inside of a tamper-proof bait station. There is also soft bait rodenticide, rodenticide pellets, rodenticide liquid, and even toxic rodent tracking powder. A few things to keep in mind when dealing with rodenticides for rats or mice:

Rodenticides kill, but don't actually catch mice or rats. Why is this important to note? When you put out rodent poison, the objective is to have as many rats or mice feed on it as possible in order to reduce the populations in the area. Upon ingesting a lethal dose, the rodents will begin to die. Depending upon which rodenticide is used and what the level of ingestion was, how long it takes for the impacted mouse or rat to die may vary from several hours to several days. The rodent bait boxes housing the rodent poison typically are not designed to catch or trap the rats or mice. So after they feed, they are going to go off and die some place. If you are placing rodenticides inside your home or office, you're creating the likelihood of having dead rodents in unknown locations throughout the building, potentially in areas that are inaccessible for removal of the carcass. Decaying rodents are generally accompanied with a number of unpleasant side effects such as a lingering foul odor, flies, other insects, and more. With all that in mind, rodenticides should generally only be used indoors as a last resort, or under the supervision of a rodent professional.

Rodent poisons work comparatively slowly. As mentioned, different poisons effect rats and mice at different rates, but none of them work instantaneously the way a rodent snap trap does. In order for a rodent poison to kill a rodent, that particular rodent has got to first ingest it. And the only it will ingest it is if it comes in contact with it. So placement and supply of the rat or mouse poison is critical to the success of any rodent baiting program. Generally speaking, optimal results are achieved through an aggressive, targeting rodent trapping program indoors followed by an aggressive, ongoing rodent baiting program outdoors.

Rodenticides alone are unlikely to eliminate an indoor population of rats or mice. For many of us, poisons seem like a pretty simple way to try to get rid of the rats or mice around our home or property. We buy a few rodent bait boxes, put some poison inside, and hope for the best. While it is true that we might kill some rodents doing this, this approach is unlikely to do much anytime soon for the rodent populations inside the home. Our recommendations are simple: