Pack Rat's got to do what a Pack Rats got to do.

When you don't have much wood to work with you improvise.

Burn it!

Looks like you have a big strong pack rat there!

Must own a pack mule.

Most of those rocks are snuff can size or larger. Should have put something down so y'all could get an idea of the size of the rocks it was hauling. That was the reason I took the picture.

Man I hate those things. It's amazing what all they can haul to their nest.

and how tough they are, they ate the Rat poison I put out for them in my trailer like it was candy.

IMPRESSIVE.....

That is the kind of rat you don't mess with. Had one that used to camp out in my Dad's lease bronco. Every time we'd open the hood he'd look at us like we owed him some money. Clean out the nest, drive it around all weekend, next time out he'd have a new one built. I swear he was about as big as a possum.

You could see him sitting back under the cab usually on the tranny, old man wouldn't let me shoot him. Scared I'd put a hole in something. Dang rat eventually ate up just about everything electrical and the truck ended up at the junkyard anyway.

That is impressive

We have nest similar to that one all over the ranch. I wonder if they work as a team to move the rocks?

That one may be the size of a possum....
Adios,
Gary

I've seen those all my life hunting and never actually realized it was rats doing it. Hate those things.

Got them all over the ranch this year.

We had a rat population explosion at lease about 2 years ago. Still a bunch of them and pretty sure that is at least part of the reason we have more yotes lately.

My daughter was in the stand with me and kept looking over the edge at the ground. Thought maybe she dropped something but come to find out packrats apparently can be more interesting to watch than deer.

We were cleaning out some bins at the ranch (about 6" square x 18" deep) when I started pulling out old beer coasters. Behind them I found about 3-4" of rat bait and then corn filled the rest of the bin. The bin next to it had the same coasters and filled with grass seed.

Figure the little thief wasn't feeling too good after harvesting all that rat bait.

Around here Pack Rat's aren't prone to explosive populations, now the Cotton Rat certainly is. Most of the rats you see around camps and old buildings are Cotton Rat's. If it's a long bushy tail it's a Pack Rat, Cotton Rat's are usually smaller and have shorter slick tails. It's also noted that Cotton Rats have been witness eating bird eggs, mostly the ground nesting species. Cotton Rats have multiple litters a year, on average it's five but some studies have shown as high as eight.

An interesting note on the Pack Rat. Pack Rat Middens as old as 50,000 years have been discovered and hold a wealth of information from it's time.

Dang HWY_MAN, I didn't realize that you were such a rodent expert. I wonder how many pack rat midden piles have contained some pretty cool artifacts????? I bet you have a story here....
This is one of the reasons I enjoy hunting with the HWY_MAN, he is a wealth of knowledge...kinda like E. F. Hutton, if he talks, you better listen.
Adios,
Gary

No kidding, learn something everyday. Looks like I am talking mostly about cotton rats.

Got one that fills the ground blind with debris about level with the seat every year... poison doesn't phase him

This one tried to take over our trailer. It was war. He had compartments full of rat poison, halloween candy, corn, paper, you name it. We couldn't sleep he was so noisy. Finally got him on a peanut in the shell. Rat Bastage. My favorite kill that year.

Cotton Rat.

Looks like a candidate for a Euro mount to me.

He was pretty meaty looking, just saying. But yeah, I wonder what a euro would have cost.

My insurance company and I just paid $3000 to repair pack rat damage to my trailer. They have carried off every poison I can find. Each time I go to my lease, I have to retrieve my bait stations. I even set 4 live traps and they were tripped with noting inside and they were hauled 20 yards from my trailer.

How do you find the nest? I'm going to have a bonfire if I ever see one. This is one of the most frustrating experiences I have had while hunting.

Hate'em, hate 'em, hate 'em!!!

Most likely your dealing with Cotton Rat's, they don't build a nest like a Pack Rat does. They'll have both underground nests and above ground nests. Above ground nests will just be a nest of grass. but they don't miss the chance to move up in the world, trailers are easy pickins and usually provide a nice food source to go with it.

Do Cotton Rats collect things and take them to their nest? When I noticed the damage, I found nests in various parts of the trailer with various things that had been "missing" in my trailer along with a pile of poison pellets.

What will repel them? Traditional rodent poison / trapping methods are ineffective.

Years ago I had an infestation of rats in my shed. I tried the decon stuff and they ate it like candy, So, I went to the feed store and he mixed me up some of his special recipe and sent it home with me in a brown paper sack. It worked great but I am thinking the EPA later banned this stuff....yes, it worked great on rats but apparently if a cat or dog ate the dead rat it would die too. The stuff just didn't go away. But dang it worked fine on rats and mice.

Many years ago a buddy of mine was having a major rat problem. With as many critters (dog's, cat's, chickens and turkeys) as he had poison was out of the question. This was the beginning of the the great Friday night rat shoots. We positioned feed in an open area and mounted a small light for visibility and would sit on the back porch and drink beer and plink them with 22's. That lasted about two week's before the competition and the wagers got higher. Before long we started seeing 1000 dollar rifle setups and several hundred dollars change hands, I went from a Marlin bolt action to an Anshutz target model. The range was 50 yards and the wager was 5 bucks a rat with an eye shot paying 20. Normally there was 5-6 of us on the porch, hit the rat got ya 5 from each person, eye shot got you 20. Seen several 100 dollar rats go down, these boys were serious. Sadly we decimated the rat population and the shoot's ended but the meetings didn't. It's now called the Thursday afternoon Garden Party that meets on Friday night and we play poker.

Sounds like my kind of fun.

In my old job I had a company car, and all of a sudden, right out of the blue, I had one of them suckers chew a plug wire in two...TWICE...on consecutive mornings!!!! The war was on there for a day or two, and between the poison, the antifreeze and the .22 rat shot, he finally left. I didn't ever kill him, I don't think. Just ruffed him up a bit, lol. I was about ready to get the .410. He had actually chewed on the 3rd one, which was really one of the old ones that would fit, until I run his butt off. And I don't know what kind of rat it really was, but he chewed them wires and found a bunch of random crap to put in his little nest. And knock on wood...haven't had that problem again.

I have a rat in my barn - he ate through my water lines - I have two glue traps, three regular traps, and the water bucket set up. I put my trail camera on all the traps. Used peanut butter, cheese, almonds, and some "special" bait from Tractor supply. Also bought the yellow bar bait (cannot remember the name) -

This rat comes in at night on camera - carries my yellow bar bait off with him and stores it.

He gets on all three of the regular traps and eats everything off of them without tripping it.

He walks right around the glue traps.

Eats the peanut butter I spread on the board that goes up to the water bucket and then turns around and heads back.

I am fixing to just torch my barn just so I can kill him

I have those Black Max I think, has a picture of a black cat, they are waxie bars. I just open the package and put them in a corner of my shop where they come in and toss a few chunks behind stuff. It kills everything that comes around.