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curtiskrobinson · 4 years ago

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Different Types of Rats

The most common types of wild rats in North America include:

Brown Rats: also known as wharf rats, or Norway rats

Black Rats: also known as ship rats, or roof rats

Packrats: also known as wood rats

Marsh rice rats

Rats are extremely common animals to have near your home, and there are different species you should know about if you think you might have an infestation. Read on, and find out everything you need on the subject, as well as how to manage the problem.

Brown Rat, Wharf Rat, or Norway Rat

Among all the rat species, brown rats are the most common ones. They usually live in urban areas, which is why you might have seen them around your house or know someone who has.

Their scientific name is Rattus Norvegicus. Norway rats came from China, but now they are all over the world – basically, in any place where there are humans (except for Antarctica).

Norway rats typically have grey or brown fur with light fur on their underside. It is one of the largest species, and it can weigh twice as a roof rat and much more than a house mouse.

Additionally, brown rats are often eight to 10 inches long, while their tails are seven to 10 inches long, which makes the tail almost as big as the body. Adult males can weigh 350 g on average, whereas females are often around 250 g.

In some cases, Norway rats can weigh up to 1,000 g, but that can almost exclusively happen with house rats. Wild specimens are almost always 300 g at most. Therefore, stories with ‘rats as big as cats’ are commonly an exaggeration since most of them are considerably smaller.

Just like other rodents, brown rats can carry many diseases that are dangerous to humans, which is why rat control is so important. Unfortunately, a Norway rat specimen is part of an invasive species, and they are superb climbers and have a keen sense of smell, so only a pest control company like AAAC Wildlife Removal could help you manage the infestation properly.

A Norway rat or brown rat often lives in places like sewers and can transmit diseases such as rat-bite fever, cryptosporidiosis, Weil’s disease, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and hemorrhagic fever.

Even though the brown rat transmits many different diseases, domesticated Norway rats are often the pet many people choose.

Scientists can also use a brown rat as a lab rat since their physiology is ideal for many experiments. However, wild rats are still dangerous, so you should never hesitate to call and get professionals to help you if you have a rat problem.

Ship Rat, Roof Rat, or Black Rat

Adult black rats are smaller than Norway ones, as they are often between five and seven inches long. Their tails are between six and eight inches long, and they often weigh 75 to 230 g, but it entirely depends on their subspecies.

Even though black rats have a very specific name, their fur can be a different color such as light brown or grey. Furthermore, they are native from India but they now reside in every continent of the world.

Black rats are omnivores, and they are famous for being a menace to farmers because they often eat their crops. Moreover, roof rats often don’t have food preferences, so they could eat anything from swine to dog and human food.

Both black and brown rats belong to the genus Rattus, and they can live wherever humans are near. However, black rats often prefer less-populated places to live in, which is why they are not so common in urban areas.

A black rat could live in areas with many people, but they became immensely famous due to their role in the spreading of the bubonic plague. Since they deeply enjoy staying in ships, they used to live there and spread the plague among the people aboard, which is why it quickly spread throughout Europe; thus the rats’ nickname: ‘ship’ rats.

Moreover, a black rat often seeks more tropical climates. Nonetheless, there is evidence that it can survive in extremely cold weather, which shows that it can adapt to extreme conditions when they need to survive.

Black rat populations are a threat to many natural habitats, crops, and people. They carry different diseases, such as typhus, Weil’s disease, the bubonic plague, trichinosis, and toxoplasmosis. At the same time, they feed on insects, birds, human food, and agricultural-based crops alike, which makes them extremely harmful.

Although many people like having domestic rats as pets, wild black rats can carry many diseases, viruses, and bacteria. Most homeowners quickly identify a nest if they find shredded paper in secluded spaces, so you should consider that if you want to make sure you have none of these specimens at home.

Woodrats or Packrats

Also known as bushy-tailed rats or woodrats, pack rats are rodents as well, and they usually weigh between 300 g and 600 g. Adult females are somewhat lighter since their weight can vary from 230 g to 350 g, with an average of 270 g.

Packrats belong to the same species as cotton rats, which is called the rodent genus Neotoma. They have very large black eyes, a fluffy long tail, and big ears. They are extremely common in the United States and northern Mexico, as well as other parts of Central America.

Just like many other rats tend to do so, packrats build nests. They find any available debris such as sticks, twigs, and branches, which can be very dangerous. In many cases, they might get into your attic and damage electrical wiring, or they could even get into your car and do some serious harm. Overall, they wreak havoc anywhere they go, and they often make a lot of noise, so identifying them is not very hard.

A unique characteristic about these small animals is that they might drop something they’re carrying if they find something else that interests them more. At the same time, they often like shiny objects.

Other species don’t demonstrate this feature, but packrats stick to a specific habitat type that is located in their range. In other words, once they have built a nest, they often stay there for a long time.

They can eat fruits or any other type of food, and their coat is usually light brown. Overall, they might try to locate any place where they have easy access to things they can eat and steal to build their nests.

Marsh Rice Rats

Marsh rice rats are another type of rodent people might find in their homes, especially if they live in the United States. They are particularly common in Florida, and the specimens in that state often have a more reddish coat of fur.

This type of rat is very similar to black and brown ones, but the color of their fur is immensely different. Unlike the other two specimens, this one has a grey or brown underside and heads backs, and torsoes have lighter colored fur. Additionally, the feet are off-white.

On average, marsh rice rats weigh 40 to 80 g, and males are typically heavier than females. They are also nine to 12 inches in length, which makes them bigger than other species.

Unlike Norway and black ones, marsh rice ones are not that common. Scientists believe it’s due to weather conditions. Furthermore, there are often more marsh rats in the summer than in winter, though in states like Louisiana and Texas they are more stable during all seasons.

Studies done in Mississippi proved that meteorological phenomena such as rain and floods caused an immense impact on the rat population, which is why it can dramatically change from year to year.

How to Deal with Infestations

If you find rats’ nests, you might be wondering whether you have true rats at home. In many cases, you might want to take care of the situation yourself.

However, the best way to deal with a rat infestation is to get professional help. Contacting the experts at AAAC Wildlife Removal provides you with a team of people who are ready to manage your issue. Moreover, you never have to worry about using the wrong methods and suffer from a persistent rat infestation.

With AAAC Wildlife Removal, you can simply trust that the experts solve your problem as soon as possible. Once they’re at your house or place of business, they can evaluate the situation and determine the cause of your rat issue and resolve it quickly and completely.

Finding rats and managing an infestation sounds easy, but using the wrong methods can cause a lot of consequences. To avoid any unwanted and unnecessary situations, you should trust experts in the field and leave everything up to them.

Rats live near human habitations, which is why it is very common to find them at home. Therefore, you should contact AAAC Wildlife Removal to ensure you and your family stay safe at all times.

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curtiskrobinson · 4 years ago

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Characteristics of a Rat

A rat is one of the most common rodent types you might find near your home. However, they are often a public health concern since they can carry dangerous diseases. Read on, and find out some of the most common types you could have around your home, as well as their distinguishing features.

Common Types of Rats in Your Home

Rats are rodents with long tails. There are many types, such as the Norway rat (Rattus Norvegicus), the Genus Rattus, and much more. House rats are very common, which is why understanding the basics is essential.

You should worry if you have rats and mice at home. Scientific research has proven that they are rodents who usually invade your space to get food, and in many cases, they transmit diseases.

Unfortunately, rat infestations can infect humans – for example, they transmitted the bubonic plague. Rattus species include many types of rats, and you could have some of those at home.

All members of the Rattus species are native to tropical areas, and some authorities recognize up to five different species clusters. Here are some of the most common types you might find at home:

Norway rat

Ship rat

Woodrat

Marsh rice rat

Distinguishing Characteristics

If you want to be able to tell a black rat from a wharf rat, you need to start by identifying rats themselves and differentiate them from other rodent types. Take a look at a rat’s distinguishing features.

Eyes

In most cases, female and male rats have dark eyes. At the same time, since the eyes are positioned on each side of their head, they have a great vision field but a poor perception of depth.

Ears

Rats and mice are often known for the shape of their ears. However, a rat often has much smaller ears than other rodents, and they’re one of the few spots in their body that’s completely bald.

Nose

The nose of a rat is extremely useful for them to detect all sorts of things in the environment. It’s elongated and highly sensitive due to the VNO, a structure that’s in a cigar-shaped passage in the nasal cavity floor.

Mouth

Rats have very unique mouths that are hard to confuse with other rodents. All wild rats have a mouth with large incisors exposed, which is a product of the cleft in the upper lip. Considering that rat’s molecular biology is that of a gnawing mammal, the incisors will never going to stop growing.

Tail

Most rats have a long tail, which is why you can easily differentiate them from mice. It doesn’t matter if they’re male or female rats – their tail is extremely long compared to other rodents.

Feet

The feet of a rat are small, but they also have features that help them adapt to their environment and survive. In this case, they possess fleshy pads of different sizes depending on the species, and that helps them move faster.

Body

A rat’s body is much larger than a mouse’s, so you can easily differentiate the two just due to their size. Some rats can be around nine inches long from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail, whereas others can be as big as 19 inches long.

Norway Rat (Rattus Norvegicus) or Brown Rat

Norway rats are also known by many other different names, such as brown rats, common rats, wharf rats, street rats, Hanover rats, or Parisian rats.

It is a brown or red rat species that are often between nine inches and 11 inches long. Its weight oscillates between 140 g and 500 g, and many scientists believe it originated in China.

Even though experts believe Norway rats come from northern China, nowadays, they exist everywhere but in Antarctica, and they reside wherever human beings are (typically in urban areas).

Rat models are very convenient for scientists to make different experiments. However, brown rats have also been bred for other purposes, which is why people also have pet rats that come from that species.

The Norway rat’s name origins are not clear, since it is obvious that the species did not originate in Norway. Lastly, their fur is often dark brown or grey, whereas the bottom part of it is frequently lighter in color.

Roof Rat

Also known as the ship or the black rat, the roof rat is a small rodent. Experts believe it originated in the Indian subcontinent, but you can now find it in any part of the world.

Adult roof rats’ body length is usually between five and seven inches long, and they weigh between 75 g to 230 g. Even though they are called ‘black’ rats, their fur can be brown as well with a light underbelly.

Additionally, this type of rat is an omnivore, which means that they are small mammals that eat all types of food. Furthermore, they are considered generalists, so they don’t have specific food preferences; thus, they can eat any food meant for cows, dogs, swine, cats, and chickens.

Black rats originated in Asia, but they quickly found their way to the rest of the world in the first century AD when they arrived in Europe. After that, Europeans spread the species around, often unknowingly having them in their ships.

Unlike brown rats, black ones usually stick to warm and depopulated areas instead of urban ones. They are also extremely resistant to extreme weather, and they are much more aggressive and wild than other types of rats.

Common House Mouse

This species belongs to the order Rodentia, and it is also a small mammal. Its physical characteristics include a long, almost-bald tail, large ears, and a big snout.

It is one of the most common species you can find at home. Moreover, it is so abundant among humans. Thus, it is currently rare to find them living completely in the wild – it is much easier to come across the semi-tame populations that live near people.

House mice have been domesticated, and now humans can have them as pets. Additionally, lab mice also stem from their domestication, and they are one of the most vital model organisms used in scientific research.

Compared to the previously mentioned species, a house mouse is extremely small since its body length is between three and four inches and only weighs between 40 and 45 g.

When these types of mice are in the wild, you can find them in different colors such as grey, black, or light brown. Nonetheless, domesticated ones are unique, and people often like them because they can be white or even champagne.

All common house mice use their tail for balance. Furthermore, their tails are almost entirely bald since they act as a thermoregulation mechanism in their bodies, which is also what the hairless bits of the paws and ears do, though to a lesser extent.

An essential fact about house mice’s tail length is that it varies depending on the mouse’s postnatal development, and more essentially, its body temperature. Consequently, mice that live in cold areas often have short tails.

Rat Behavior

Rats are immensely curious creatures, and they often bite things to explore their surroundings. Unfortunately, your objects, or even sleeping babies, might be the object of their exploration, which can be extremely dangerous.

In many cases, rats may also bite if they feel threatened, which can happen when the person is near their nest. Even though a house rat is a domesticated species you may have at home as your pet, wild rats do not fit that category and often come from the sewers or similar places.

Natural history has allowed rats to have very sharp teeth and a great sense of smell, so they can quickly detect dangers and react to them if necessary. However, the perils rat attacks are not limited to their ruthless bite, because they also carry disease.

Rats are carriers of animal-borne diseases, also known as zoonoses. Thus, if a rat bites you, you might need different shots to ensure you don’t have further complications. On many occasions, one rat bite can cause rat-bite fever.

A rat can also transmit the bubonic plague through its fleas. Moreover, it could give you salmonella if their fur has the bacteria and they walk through your food.

Considering that rats can transmit so many different diseases, it is no wonder that many people want to ensure they never have them at home. Overall, it is an animal that could make you sick, so you should keep that in mind if you believe you might have an infestation.

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curtiskrobinson · 4 years ago

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How Big Can Rats Grow?

The largest rats ever discovered include:

A Gambian Pouched Rat. The largest Gambian Pouched Rat was three feet long and weighed three pounds

Northern Luzon Cloud Rat. A Northern Luzon Cloud Rat measuring 2.5 feet, with a weight of 5.7 pounds, was discovered in the Philippines.

Sumatran Bamboo Rat. The largest rat of its kind was 1.6 feet long and weighed a whopping 8.8 pounds.

Bosavi Wooly Rats. These rats can grow to be 3.5 pounds and measure up to 32 inches from nose to tail.

For more common rats (i.e. roof rats, brown rats, fancy rats), they can grow up to 12 ounces and and around 20 inches long.

There are more than 60 species of rats, and they come in many different sizes, generally growing to be larger than mice. A rat’s size depends on its available food supply and species, with rat tails often growing to be longer than their bodies. Some of the most common rat species are the house rat and the brown rat. Other rats include roof rats and pack rats.

Dealing with a rat problem is no easy feat, so if you have a rat infestation, it is best to contact AAAC Wildlife Removal for effective rat control solutions. If you are interested to know more about giant rats, here is all you need to know.

Male Rats Versus Female Rats and Other Interesting Information

A male rat generally grows to be heavier and with a larger body size than that of a female rat. As per the American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association, rats became household pets more than 100 years ago. If you keep a baby rat as a pet, it may grow to be much larger than its original size. A rat can be distinguished from a mouse because it has smaller ears, a thicker tail, and a broader muzzle. They also tend to grow to much larger sizes than mice. A rat with access to an unlimited or more significant food supply can grow much larger than a rat with a restricted food supply.

Rats exist primarily to mate and exhibit foraging behavior. Most of these creatures are nocturnal, which means that they are active at night and sleep during the day. However, the brown rat is commonly alert at all hours of the day and night. Typically, rats congregate in groups known as a mischief, although its more commonly know as a “pack”. When breeding wild brown rats form a nest in an area where there isn’t already a competing pack and then form their own. The pack’s biggest male typically leads the mischief, and the group may contain several other dominant males and females.

Studies have shown that a pet rat housed in a smaller cage grew to be smaller than those housed in larger cages, indicating that a rat’s environment also has an impact on the size to which it can grow. Here are some of the most common species that can grow to enormous sizes. The largest rat species in the world exists undisturbed in the remnants of a volcano where food is abundant. Undisturbed by humans, rats can grow to surprising sizes, so if you notice a rat, it is better to take the appropriate measures as soon as possible to prevent the rat from growing. This also includes cutting off their food supply by ensuring that your property is clean and free of unattended food supplies.

Here are some of the most prominent massive rat species.

The Brown Rat or Norway Rat

The scientific name for brown rats is Rattus norvegicus or Rattus norvegicus domestica (the common pet rat or “fancy rats”). Despite being known as Norway rats, these rats are native to China and their fur is typically brown or dark grey. However, brown rats live commonly across the US and Canada. The average adult Norway rat can weigh between seven and 10 ounces or more have a tail length of more than four inches and a body length of more than 20 inches. Young rats are born underdeveloped and hairless. They weigh between 0.18 and 0.21 ounces at birth.

Adult rats have a sizable, stout body and their tails are smaller than their bodies, and they prefer living underground by burrowing. They typically live for two years, which allows them to mature into large rodents, and wild Norway rats tend to grow larger than domesticated brown rats. Norway rats can be found wreaking havoc on garbage dumps, dumpsters, grain storage areas, and sewers. These areas are where they can access food very easily. The largest brown rat ever recorded is nearly 21 inches, or two feet, in length from the tip of its nose to its tail’s tip. According to scientific evidence, the Norway rat is limited physiologically to roughly two pounds, and other species can grow to be a lot larger.

The Black Rat or Roof Rat

The roof rat (scientific name Rattus rattus) is also known as the ship rat or black rat, and these rodents are typically eight inches long and have slim bodies. These rodents have smooth coats and lighter grey fur with black shading. Their tails are dark, hairless, and scaly. Like a mouse, their tail is longer than their head and body. Their ears are large, hairless, thin, and they have pointed noses.

These creatures were commonly known as ship rats because they were known to invade ships and other human habitations. Black rats were also known to spread the bubonic plague. A decline in the number of roof rats and their displacement by brown rats is predicted to have resulted in the decline of the Black Death. However, this information has not been confirmed.

Black rats travel along tree branches, overhead pipes, rafters, utility, and power lines to enter properties. As a result of living in trees, black rats have developed a taste for fruits and nuts. They are most commonly found in coastal cities and swampy areas of the southeast. Because these animals are afraid of new things in their environment, they commonly avoid pesticides and traps.

Gambian Pouch Rats

The Gambian Pouched Rat, one of the largest rat species from the rodent genera in the world, is commonly found in Africa. They are usually around three feet long from the tip of their nose to the tip of the tail and weigh roughly three pounds and have long grey fur. These rats can be bred in captivity for up to seven years, giving them enough time to live up to their title of one of the world’s largest rat species. The Gambian Pouched Rat is known for its work in Africa, where many have been trained to detect live landmines in villages, protecting people from certain death.

The Biggest Rats on Record

The largest rats in the world can be found on remote Asian islands, in which they have grown to giant proportions because the environment is favorable, offering enough isolation, food, and warmth. Because these locations are remote, and it is hard to study these rodents in such conditions, information on the world’s largest rat may not be very accurate. Here are some of the largest rats that have been recorded.

The Bosavi Woolly Rat

As per the Smithsonian Institution, the Bosavi woolly rat is currently the world’s largest rat species. This new species of giant rat was discovered in 2009 by a Smithsonian biologist in Mount Bosavi’s crater, the remnant of a once active volcano in an area known as Papua New Guinea. The biggest rat discovered weighed about 3.5 pounds (or 2.7 feet) and was 32 inches in length, from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail. This enormous rat had a dense, silver-gray coat and was not afraid of humans. According to BBC News, the species may only exist within the remnants of this volcano, so these rat populations are not very prominent. This means that the chances of finding massive rats the size of average domestic cats are highly unlikely.

Some of the other biggest rats that have been discovered worldwide include:

A Gambian Pouched Rat. The largest Gambian Pouched Rat was three feet long and weighed three pounds

Northern Luzon Cloud Rat. A Northern Luzon Cloud Rat measuring 2.5 feet, with a weight of 5.7 pounds, was discovered.

Sumatran Bamboo Rat. The largest rat of its kind was 1.6 feet long and weighed a whopping 8.8 pounds.

If you suspect that you have a giant rat problem that you cannot seem to get rid of, it may be time to get professional help.

Need Help with Your Rat Problem?

Rats aren’t just hard on the eyes. They are an invasive species also known to carry and spread diseases. Infected brown rats led to the spread of disease by transferring the infectious disease either directly, through the contamination of food sources, or indirectly through their fleas. An infected rat’s perception is no different from that of an uninfected rat, so they go about their business, as usual, causing destruction to property, and invading places where humans live, which could have potentially dangerous consequences for human inhabitants.

With rats growing to sizes of up to 2.7 feet, they should not be allowed to breed and multiply. Therefore, it is imperative that you contact a professional rat control company (like AAAC Wildlife Removal) that can trap and remove wild populations before they can grow to enormous sizes, causing damage to your home, building, or property.

The truth is that most solutions advertised online, such as pesticides and traps, simply are not effective because most rats are fearful of new things and do not investigate them. At AAAC Wildlife Removal, we are familiar with all species of rats, both large and small, and our solutions are tailor-made to every rat-infested area, so you can rest assured that a giant rat isn’t trashing your attic or kitchen in the night.

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curtiskrobinson · 4 years ago

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How to Prevent Rats in the Garden

Rats have always been a common problem among many homeowners worldwide. Whether these rodents seek shelter in your house, yard, or garden, they can easily become a problem for you and your family.

A rodent infestation can cause significant damage to your property if you don’t take care of the issue promptly. In the case of your garden, you could easily attract rats without even knowing it. This can become a problem over time. Additionally, if you have a rat colony in your garden, you may be at risk of illness since rats often spread infectious diseases to both pets and humans.

There are many measures you can take to repel rats and take care of your plants before it’s too late. However, it’s vital for you to know how to identify what can attract rodents so that you prevent that from happening again. If you want to know more about how to prevent mice, rats, and other rodents into your garden, keep reading this guide!

Why Would Rats Be In Your Garden?

Rats, mice, and rodents in general always look for three different factors: Food, shelter, and water. As long as your garden has all of these three factors, you may be attracting rodents to your prize winning squash! Keep in mind that gardens often work as an extension of the normal habitat they tend to live in since they provide food, shelter, and water.

If you have a vegetable garden, it’s going to be highly attractive for rats, even if they prefer animal protein and fat rather than vegetables. Additionally, people with sprinkler systems may provide enough water for most rats to thrive, making it a suitable environment for them. Finally, if you have overgrown areas in your garden, these could be great for many rats to build nests and hide.

Rats often colonize your garden through storage sheds, garden beds, lawns, and compost piles. If you don’t take care of the issue promptly, other rats may find a way into your home, putting you and your family at risk. Whether you’re dealing with black rats or brown rats (Norway rats), it’s vital for you to take the right rodent control measures before it’s too late.

How to Tell if You Have a Rat Infestation In Your Garden

Thankfully, there are several ways to tell whether you’re having a rat problem in your garden. Typically, the primary factor that tells you that you have rats in your garden is that you saw one there. Mice and rats often go on the top of power lines, fences, and trees, so they shouldn’t be that hard to spot.

On the other hand, keep in mind that mice and rats tend to pull up the roots of your plants and bite at them, so if you’re beginning to notice that your plants are disappearing overnight, you may have a rat problem.

Mice, rats, and other rodents tend to carve holes in the soil surface of your garden to move easily along the area. If you leave rats to burrow holes continually, you may expose all your plants to severe damage. You may notice these holes easily since rodents tend to create mounds of soil to identify the entrance.

Finally, rats always leave droppings behind, so if you’re noticing small, black grains of rice in your garden, it may be a sign of rat activity in your garden.

Some of the most popular places where rodents gather include the following:

Compost pile

Garden shed

Trash bags/Garbage bin

Wood piles

Bird feeders

What Are the Problems of Having Rats in the Garden?

While the sight of rodents on your property is already unpleasant for everyone, there are many issues that may come from letting a rat into your garden.

First, rodents can easily destroy your garden by eating all your plants. Additionally, a rat may infect your garden with a pathogen they may carry. Keep in mind that rats often carry several diseases, such as Salmonellosis, Tularemia, and others.

If you let these rodents contaminate your vegetables, fruit, and herbs, you and your family may be at risk of suffering some health diseases. In most cases, having live or dead rats in your garden is not sanitary. Not only can poor garden sanitation attract rats and other animals, but it can also cause plant diseases.

How to Prevent a Rat Infestation in the Garden

If you’re experiencing rat problems in your garden, there are some measures you can take to get rid of rats or deter them from your property. Once you identify the source of the problem, it’s time to take the right steps into catching rats and preventing them from contaminating your garden and home.

Remove Water Sources

Rats often look for sources of standing water to consume it continually. Some of these water sources include irrigation lines, leaky faucets, pools, and even your pets’ water bowls. If you have any of these water sources mentioned before, make sure to cover or remove them so that rats can’t access and contaminate them.

Remember that water sources attract rats, and if they gain access to them, they can easily contaminate your water supply. Overall, all your plants may be at risk of consuming contaminated water, and your family may be too.

Secure any Compost

Your compost pile is one of the most attractive areas where rats may look for food. First, you must do your best to get food scraps away from your compost. Additionally, you may get rodent-proof containers to deter rats from your compost.

If you want to make your compost hard to access by rats, you could also place chicken wire or hardware cloth under the compost pile. In case your compost has any holes or cracks, you may seal them with durable materials, such as steel wool. Finally, an effective method to get rid of rats is to move around your pit continually so that rats don’t feel comfortable being around it.

Prevent Access to Decking

Your deck is also a place where a rat can go looking for food scraps since they often find hiding places there. In these cases, you may consider replacing your deck’s fixed panels with removable panels so that you can make a thorough inspection of the area and place any live traps you may need.

On the other hand, you must ensure to block access to your deck if possible. Decks are some of the most popular ways to make your garden look more attractive, but they’re also the perfect place for a rat to seek shelter. If none of these solutions work, you may try installing a patio so that rats don’t have easy access to it.

Secure Outdoor Sheds

Garden sheds are another suitable environment for a rat to live in. If you have outdoor sheds, make sure they’re uncluttered and secured. In these cases, a good pest control measure is to keep any storage spaces as clean as possible to make them uninhabitable for rats.

As mentioned before, poor garden sanitation can easily lead to problems with rodents. As long as you store food in rodent-proof containers and keep everything else tidy, you’re not likely to experience any problems.

Clean Up Any Food Sources (Pet Food, Fallen Fruit, etc.)

You may sometimes leave food outside without noticing, such as pet food, birdseed, kitchen scraps, and others. It’s highly recommended for you not to place these foods into your compost since that could lead to rats looking there for their food. Instead, you may place these items inside your home or in a rodent-proof container.

In the case of fallen fruit or vegetables, it’s vital for you to take them away from your garden as soon as possible. The more these items decompose, the more attractive they’re going to become for rats nearby, making the problem even worse.

Stop Feeding Birds

If you’re experiencing rat problems, you may want to avoid feeding wild birds and other pets for a while. Keep in mind that rats are attracted to fallen food, such as birdseed, so they may try climbing up feeding stations to feed themselves.

Additionally, you may try getting rid of any overgrown vegetation in your garden. Rats have poor eyesight, so they’re unlikely to be able to climb hard-to-reach places. Once you’re certain that you don’t have a rat infestation anymore, you can start feeding animals again.

Keep Things Tidy

As mentioned throughout this article, one of the best pest control measures you can take is to keep your garden tidy. This involves keeping your grass short, clearing away cluttered areas, and trimming any overgrown areas you may have.

Remember that cluttered gardens may give rats easy access to your property, so take care of those issues as soon as you can. Clean gardens don’t provide as much shelter as rats typically need, making them less attractive to these animals.

Using Rat Traps

An effective way to get rid of rats is to use rat traps. Most people use traditional snap traps since they have proven to be more effective than other methods. We highly recommend using a snap trap instead of bait stations with peanut butter, cotton balls, biodegradable soap, or dried mint since they’re not effective against other rat traps and may cause further problems for your garden.

Bottom Line

As you can see, there are several pest control measures you can take to minimize rodent problems in your garden. However, if you’re experiencing too many issues with these rodents, it’s highly recommended for you to talk with a pest control company.

The professionals at AAAC Wildlife Removal have all the necessary tools and traps to get rats away from your garden and home forever. If you’re looking to solve your rodent issue promptly, make sure to schedule an inspection with the AAAC Wildlife Removal team. We’ll solve your rat problem in a flash!

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curtiskrobinson · 4 years ago

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What Do Mice and Rats Look Like?

If you’ve noticed some droppings, shredded paper, missing food, and a strong urine odor, you may have a rodent problem on your hands. Rodents don’t just leave behind droppings and odors. They can also cause extensive damage to your property, and identifying the rodent is usually the first step taken by pest control.

Correctly identifying which rodent you have in your home determines the solution you need to treat the rodent problem. If you need help telling the difference between a mouse and a rat, here is everything you need to know.

Differing Characteristics: Mouse vs Rat

Mice and rats are both rodents, so they appear to be similar. Both rodents tend to have long whiskers, and most rat and mouse species tend to seek food at night. They often return to the same location, building nests for the young mouse or young rat to occupy, and both rodents have oily fur. Both rats and mice return to the same places if there is an adequate food source, and they can get out to drink water easily.

However, one of the key differences between rats and mice is their size. Rats are often bigger and heavier, whereas mice are much smaller in size, and their bodies are more slender. Mice have long, thin tails covered in fur or hair, whereas rat tails tend to be thicker, shorter, and generally hairless. You can tell the difference between a rat and a mouse by assessing the following characteristics:

• Appearance

• Body Size and weight

• Droppings

Appearance

Mice

Mice have larger ears that are typically bigger than their heads, and a notable physical characteristic is their triangular, pointed noses. Their tails are long and hairy, and their fur can be light brown, black, or grey. Its tail is often a similar color to its fur. Mice have tails that are often longer than their body length. Their floppy ears, short legs, long tails, and smaller body size make these rodents much more tolerable in appearance to rats.

Rats

On the other hand, Rats have small hairy ears with larger heads that are more proportionate to their body length. Unlike mice with softer fur, rats have bristly, rough fur and their tails are often hairless, thicker, and scaly. They can either be white, grey, brown, or black in color and typically have a blunt nose. If you have a rat problem, you can expect to see significant damage to your home’s building materials, as these rodents have much sharper incisor teeth.

Body Size and Weight

A notable difference between rats and mice is that the former can grow much larger than mice. Mice tend to grow to about three to four inches. In terms of weight, mice typically weigh anywhere from 0.5 to 3 ounces, with the average adult mouse growing tails that are just as long as their bodies.

Rats typically reach body lengths of between nine and 11 inches, with shorter tails of up to nine inches. Several rat species can exceed these measurements, and many giant rats are being discovered. A rat can weigh anything from 12 ounces to 1.5 pounds.

Droppings

Rodent droppings are all typically dark in color. However, rat droppings are larger than mouse droppings.

Mouse Droppings

Mouse droppings have pointed ends and tend to look like grains of dark rice, measuring 1/8 to 1/4 inches, and mice tend to produce significantly more droppings than rats, so you can expect to see a lot of tiny droppings if you have a mouse problem in your home.

Rat Droppings

Rat droppings are more rounded and are generally the size of olive pits, measuring up to 3/4 inches. If you have rodent problems, you can expect to see fewer droppings throughout the day if your problem is rats.

Identifying the Most Common Types of Mice

The characteristics above may not be enough to differentiate between rats and mice accurately. Here are some of the most common species of mice that invade the home.

The White Mouse or House Mouse

Habitat Preferences

White or house mice prefer to construct their nesting sites in burrows and are native to the United States. These rodents are nocturnal and inquisitive. They like to explore new objects, including poisons, repellents, and traps, before deciding whether to stay in or away from an area.

Appearance

Their small black eyes, little paws, and rounded, large ears make it a cute pet but are formidable foes to those whose homes they invade. The house mouse is a dusty light grey color, and their small size means that they can get into tiny holes and cracks in the home.

Signs That You Have a House Mouse in Your Home

If you have a house mouse problem, you should see between 50 to 75 house mouse droppings per day which can quickly accumulate, spreading germs and disease.

You should notice a urine odor, along with a strong, musty smell if you have a house mouse infestation, and you can expect to find shredded books and paper towels around the home, as they tend to use these for their nesting areas. These mice also tend to make half-inch holes in walls and baseboards.

The Field or Deer Mouse

Habitat and Food Preferences

Deer mice, also known as field mice, are known to be hoarders. You can expect to find this rodent in rural and semi-rural areas in midwestern and eastern states in the US. These mice prefer foods like berries, nuts, grains, and seeds.

Appearance

They come in various shades of brown, ranging from golden to reddish, and have a white chest with white feet. Their tails are often two colors, and they tend to be larger than house mice.

Signs That You Have a Deer Mouse on Your Property

Field mice leave behind dark 1/4-inch droppings with pointed ends and tend to gnaw at wooden beams, feed bags, and cardboard, typically making holes for burrows in flooring. These mice hide food in various locations around their nesting sites, including the hollows inside trees, decks, sheds, attics, and porches.

Identifying Rat Species

Rats come in different colors and species. The most common types of rats include the Norway, or brown rat, and the roof rat (also known as the black rat or ship rat). A rat infestation can be much harder to deal with, so it is advisable to enlist the help of a pest control company like AAAC Wildlife Removal.

The Norway Rat or Brown Rat

Habitat and Other Preferences

Norway rats, or brown rats, are rodents that prefer to travel close to ground level. They eat just about anything, including food scraps and trash from open garbage cans. These rodents tend to avoid snap traps, poisons, and glue boards, and the Norway rat can be found commonly across the US and Canada.

Because Norway rats can be found in so many different places, including sewer systems, they are often given names such as the sewer rat, water rat, house rat, and barn rat.

Appearance

The brown rat can grow to be 16 inches long and have thick, heavy bodies with large, protruding black eyes, small ears, and blunt noses.

Signs That You Have a Norway Rat in Your Home

Norway rat droppings are typically 3/4 of an inch long, with rounded ends. If you have a Norway rat infestation, you can expect a urine odor with gnaw marks on areas such as corners, floor joists, and wall studs. Norway rats have amassed a bad reputation and are often the objects of disgust and disdain.

The Roof Rat

Habitat and Other Preferences

Roof rats are also commonly known as ship rats or black rats. These rodents travel along tree branches, rafters, overhead pipes, utility, and power lines to enter properties. Black rats have developed a taste for fruit and nuts as a result of living in trees.

A black rat often causes damage to cables and other structures in ceilings, attics, and the upper floors of homes and buildings. They are typically found in coastal cities and the swampy parts of the southeast.

These animals are neophobic (wary of new things in their surroundings), so they often avoid pesticides and traps.

Appearance

Roof rats have dark, slender bodies, and they tend to gnaw on electrical wires, resulting in costly electrical power outages and damage to cables. These rodents have grey fur that has black shading, and their coats tend to be smooth. Their tails are hairless and scaly, and their tails are as long as their bodies.

Signs That You Have a Roof Rat Problem

Should you hear scuttling in your attic, the chances are that you have a roof rat problem. You can expect 1/2-inch roof rat droppings to be found scattered randomly if you have roof rats in your home.

Need Help with Your Rodent Problem?

Rodent infestations can be incredibly challenging to deal with without the help of professional pest control. At AAAC Wildlife Removal, we understand that rats and mice are different from other rodents. Therefore, the success of a trap and remove solution is completely dependent on the species and type of rodent you have in your home, building, or garden.

Most pesticides simply aren’t an effective way to rid your home of rodents such as mice and rats, so a more specialized, tailor-made solution is required. AAAC Wildlife Removal can help you tell the difference between a mouse vs rat problem. The longer you wait, the more structural damage you can expect these rodents to inflict upon your home, so contact AAAC Wildlife Removal today!

Originally published on https://aaacwildliferemoval.com/blog/rats/what-do-mice-and-rats-look-like/

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curtiskrobinson · 4 years ago

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Rat Eyesight

Nature has given all animals the physical assets they need to survive in their habitat. In this case, “good eyesight” is a subjective expression. While rats lack the razor-sharp vision of a bird of prey, their vision is more than adequate for the tasks they must complete on a daily basis. However, does this mean a rat’s eyesight is good? Let’s take a further look!

Do Rats Have Good Vision?

It is worth emphasizing that rats are not like other animals in that they do not have a true 20/20 vision, to begin with. In fact, if you looked through the eyes of a rat, you would see that they perceive the world through a blurry haze.

They can only see a few feet at best and are relatively nearsighted critters, so if your pet rat is not reacting to your presence across a large room, it is because they cannot see you. This doesn’t indicate they are losing their vision; it just was not that good to begin with.

Rats, on the other hand, have much better hearing. If you open a door, cough, or scuff your shoes on the floor, they will react.

The truth is that rats adapted to living and feeding in low light conditions; their vision is poor even close up, and it is non-existent at a longer distance. Therefore, before you start worrying about your rat turning blind, keep in mind that your rat is not very reliant on its vision in the first place.

Can Rats See in Color?

Yes, rats can see things in color. In their retina, they contain two kinds of color cones: one for seeing blue ultraviolet light and the other for recognizing green light or colors. Rats have a similar color perception to human beings, except they are red-green colorblind, which means they see shades of red as a generally dark tone. In terms of vision, rats come up short of people in terms of clarity.

Rats Can See Ultraviolet Light

Rats (Rattus norvegicus) have two types of cones, one with an ultraviolet-sensitive photopigment (UV) and the other with a pigment that is most sensitive in the visible spectrum’s middle wavelengths. Via recordings of behavioral discrimination tests and a gross electrical potential (the electroretinogram, ERG), the researchers looked at how signals from these two cone types influence rat vision. The spectral sensitivity functions acquired from both methods of measurements show that each of the cone classes has a distinct contribution.

However, the behavioral index shows a significant increase in relative sensitivity to UV light; for example, rats are roughly equally sensitive to middle-wavelength and UV lights under particular photopic test circumstances. The thresholds for UV and middle wavelength lights were shown to be differentially enhanced in the presence of chromatic adapting backdrops in adaptation tests. This suggests that the rat visual system may utilize signals from the two cones to facilitate color discriminations. After that, wavelength discrimination studies done on rats revealed that they have a dichromatic color vision.

Rats Have Blurry Vision

Due to the number and size of light-detecting cones in a rat’s eyes, they can distinguish distinct colors but see much of their surroundings as a blur. A rat’s capacity to sense color contrast is limited, but given that they are predominantly nocturnal, this isn’t a critical adaption for them. Moreover, rats’ eyes have a great reaction to brightness and are often light averse.

Poor Visual Acuity

The rat’s world is a hazy one. The number of lines that may be seen as distinct inside a degree of the visual field is assessed in cycles per degree (cpd), which is a measurement of visual acuity. Human acuity is around 30 cpd, one cpd for normally pigmented rats, and 0.5 for albino rats (Prusky et al. 2002, 2000; also see Birch and Jacobs 1979 who found 1.2 cycles per degree for pigmented rats and 0.34-0.43 cycles per degree for albino rats). When we convert Prusky’s cpd measurements to vision chart measures, we find that a typically pigmented rat has 20/600 vision; however, an albino rat has 20/1200 vision.

The density of ganglion cells in a rat’s retina can also be used to determine rat acuity. The higher the acuity at that location of their retina, the denser the ganglion cells will cluster. Thus, the densest area of ganglion cells in a rat is 52.8o broad and placed slightly temporal to and above the optic disk (defined as the zone covering 75 percent of maximum ganglion cell density). This area has a maximum density of 6,774 cells/mm2. This is not extremely dense; the fovea, the densest part of a human’s retina, has a maximum of 38,000 cells per mm2 (Curcio and Allen 1990).

Rats Can Move Their Eyes Independently

Each of a rat’s eyes may move independently. The eyes of a rat are on the side of their head, allowing them to see with a panoramic perspective. Furthermore, rats have a blind spot in the middle of their optical field, just like humans. The brains of both humans and rats compensate for this by putting together the data from each eye and filling in the gaps. Rats, on the other hand, can broaden their field of vision in ways that humans cannot by shifting each eye in varying directions, allowing them to keep one eye on the skies. This is most certainly an evolutionary adaption that allows rats to be aware of dangers from predators in the air.

Rats Are Nearsighted

Unless an animal has extraordinarily big eyes, such as a bird of prey, or numerous eyes, it usually has to give up either depth perception or field of vision. Animals with eyes on the side of their heads have a nearly 180-degree perceptual range, but poor depth perception. People and other animals with front-facing eyes have great binocular vision and thus high depth perception, but a narrower range of perception. Rats, on the other hand, use a method called motion parallax to compensate for their weak depth perception. They can take several mental photos of the range of vision directly in front of them by bouncing their heads up and down. These head movements allow the brain to subsequently calculate an estimated depth.

Visual Orientation

Rats use visual signals from afar to orient themselves (Hebb 1938, Lashley 1938). Carr (1913) discovered that rats conditioned in a sideless maze lost their way if the circuit was rotated; however, their performances did not suffer if the visual environment was turned along with the maze (Higginson 1930). The inclusion of visual cues in mazes accelerates maze learning, whereas the absence of visual cues allows even the most experienced rat to make mistakes (Honzik 1936).

In addition, rats may rely on their whiskers rather than their sight at short distances. Rats were positioned on a sheet of glass in another experiment. The glass-covered half of a surface and the other half of a void. A visual cliff experiment is what it’s called. Human children, for example, prefer to step on the glass above the platforms rather than the glass over the dropoff because they rely on visual information to perceive depth. Rats, on the other hand, strolled boldly on the glass poised over a dropoff, choosing the shallow and deep sides of the glass in equal proportions.

Their whiskers indicated that they could walk on the solid surface. Rats with clipped whiskers, on the other contrary, avoided the dropoff and picked the shallow side, showing that they were forced to depend on vision to sense depth without whiskers (Schiffman et al. 1970).

They Rely on Their Other Senses

Pigmented rats rely on their senses of hearing and smell more than humans do. They rely heavily on whisker contact to navigate. When it comes to a rat, poor vision is not as severe as it is for a person. Rats live in an intense world of smell, sound, and touch, which allows them to navigate their environment effectively.

The albino rat has to compensate for its near-blindness by relying on its other senses. Unfortunately, when comparing pigmented and albino rats, albino rats seem to have a poor sense of smell. Albinos, on the other hand, seem to have adequate hearing.

Vision Damage

The rat’s retina loses most of its cells as it ages, and sections of the retina become larger and thicker. The capillaries that nourish the retina also thicken significantly (Weisse 1995). As a result, adult rats are unlikely to see as well as young rats.

Conclusion

Rats with normal pigmentation have hazy or poor vision with dim blues, greens, and ultraviolets. The rats may or may not understand the significance of these colors. This type of vision is presumably fine for rats, who can see food and other rats from a short distance yet are alert to approaching dogs or hawks, as well as distant orientation cues.

Within a few weeks of opening their eyes, albino rats are likely to be severely visually impaired or blind. Their retinas degrade, their brains struggle to coordinate images from their two eyes, and they have problems seeing in both strong and dim light.

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