If you have seen one rat, you do not have one rat. For every rat in the daylight, there are a dozen you never see. My grandfather taught me to clear them out for about two dollars — no poison, no monthly bill, no man in a truck. In this video I show you the bucket trap, exactly how to set it and where, then the rest of the system: sealing your grain, killing the food and water source, and keeping a good barn cat. The trap cleans up the rats you have. The system makes sure they never come back.
Go look for the rub marks — those greasy smudges around the holes they travel — and tell me in the comments what you found, how old your place is, and whether it is a house, a barn, or a coop. I read every one.
Next time: the one thing my grandfather planted along every garden bed to keep moles and voles out, no poison, no traps. Subscribe so you do not miss it.
Seal your grain, keep a cat, patch your holes, and remember — the people who built this country with their hands knew things we are only just starting to remember.
#Amish #RatControl #HowToGetRidOfRats #BucketTrap #Homesteading #OffGrid #SelfReliance #PestControl #BarnCats #OldWays #RatTrap #FarmLife #Prepping #AmishWisdom #Rodents
Go look for the rub marks — those greasy smudges around the holes they travel — and tell me in the comments what you found, how old your place is, and whether it is a house, a barn, or a coop. I read every one.
Next time: the one thing my grandfather planted along every garden bed to keep moles and voles out, no poison, no traps. Subscribe so you do not miss it.
Seal your grain, keep a cat, patch your holes, and remember — the people who built this country with their hands knew things we are only just starting to remember.
#Amish #RatControl #HowToGetRidOfRats #BucketTrap #Homesteading #OffGrid #SelfReliance #PestControl #BarnCats #OldWays #RatTrap #FarmLife #Prepping #AmishWisdom #Rodents
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00If you have seen one rat in your house or your barn, I want you to understand something before
00:05you do anything else. You do not have one rat. For every rat you see in the daylight,
00:13there are a dozen you will never see, behind your walls, under your floor, up in your barn loft,
00:20down in the dark where they live. The one that ran across the floor and made your wife scream
00:26is the bold one, or the hungry one, or the crowded out one. Behind him there is a nest,
00:33and that nest is growing faster than you think. A pair of rats, left alone with food and shelter,
00:39can become hundreds before the year is out. They will chew through your grain sacks, your wiring,
00:46your cabinets, the very studs of your house. A rat's teeth never stop growing, so it never stops
00:54gnawing, on wood, on wire, on lead pipe, on things you would not believe an animal could bite through.
01:02They foul ten times as much food as they eat, with their droppings and their dirt, and they carry
01:08sickness. This is not a problem you can let sit. My name is Elias Yoda. I am Amish. I farm
01:17in Lancaster
01:18County, Pennsylvania, and I have lived my whole life with a barn, a granary, a corn crib, and a chicken
01:25house, every one of them a place a rat would dearly love to move into. I have never once paid
01:32a man to
01:33come spray poison around my farm. Not because I could not, but because my grandfather taught me a
01:39better way, and his father taught him, and the way costs about two dollars, and works better than
01:46anything you can buy. I am going to show you that two dollar method today. I am going to show
01:52you the
01:52trap, exactly how to set it, and exactly where to put it. Then I am going to show you the
01:58rest of the
01:59system, because the trap alone is only half the battle, and I am going to tell you the part the
02:05pest control man would rather you never figured out, which is that the whole modern way of dealing
02:11with rats is built to keep you paying month after month for a problem the old people solved for free.
02:19Stay with me. By the end of this, you will be able to clear the rats out of your place
02:24yourself
02:24this week for the price of a bucket. Let me start by telling you why the things most people try
02:31do not
02:32work, because if you understand that, the rest makes sense. Most folks, when they get a rat,
02:38do one of two things. They buy a snap trap, or they buy poison. The snap trap is not a
02:45bad tool.
02:46I have nothing against it, but it catches one rat, and then it is done until you come reset it.
02:53If you have a real infestation, you would have to set 50 of them and tend them all day. And
03:00here is
03:00the thing about rats that most people do not know. They are smart, and they are suspicious. A rat does
03:07not
03:07trust anything new. You put a strange new metal contraption in his path, and he will walk around
03:14it for days before he works up the nerve to touch it. The fancy word the trappers use is neophobia,
03:21fear of new things. A rat has it bad. So your one snap trap sits there, untouched, while the rats
03:30laugh at
03:31it and keep breeding. The poison is worse, and I will be plain about why I do not use it,
03:37beyond just
03:38that I am Amish. Poison is slow. The rat eats it, then wanders off and dies somewhere you cannot reach,
03:46inside your wall, under your floor, up in the insulation. And then you have a dead rat rotting
03:53in a place you cannot get to, stinking up your house for two weeks, drawing flies. Worse than that,
04:00the poison does not stay where you put it. A rat can carry a chunk of it off. A barn
04:06cat, or a dog,
04:08or an owl, or a hawk, can eat a poisoned rat. I keep cats. I keep them on purpose, and
04:14I will tell you
04:15why in a minute. The last thing I want is to poison the very animals that are doing my rat
04:21killing for me.
04:21So poison is off the table on my farm, and I would tell you to keep it off yours. So
04:27what is left?
04:28What did we use before there was a poison aisle at the store, and a man in a truck with
04:34a spray rig?
04:35We used the simplest thing in the world. We used a bucket. Here is the trap. It costs about two
04:41dollars
04:42if you have a bucket already, which most folks do. And even if you buy everything new, it is under
04:48twenty.
04:49You take a five-gallon bucket, the kind you mix paint in or carry feed in. Any bucket about that
04:56size
04:56will do. Across the top of it, you lay a bar that can spin, and there are a few ways
05:02to make it.
05:03The oldest way, the way my grandfather did it, is to take a tin can, a soda can, or a
05:09small metal cylinder,
05:10and run a stiff wire, or a thin metal rod, straight through the middle of it, end to end, like
05:17an axle.
05:18You lay that rod across the rim of the bucket, so the can hangs in the middle, and spins freely
05:24when anything touches it.
05:26You smear a little peanut butter right in the center of the can.
05:30Then you lean a board up against the side of the bucket, like a little ramp, so a rat can
05:35climb from the floor, up to the rim.
05:38That is the whole trap. A bucket, a spinning can on a wire, a dab of peanut butter, and a
05:45ramp.
05:46Now here is how it works, and it is a beautiful thing.
05:50The rat smells the peanut butter, and a rat can smell peanut butter from clear across a barn.
05:55He climbs the ramp. He gets to the rim.
05:59He sees the bait sitting there in the middle of that can, and he steps out onto the can to
06:05reach it.
06:05The moment he puts his weight on it, the can spins, and the rat drops straight down into the bucket.
06:12The can spins right back to where it started, ready for the next one.
06:17The rat cannot climb back out. The walls are too tall and too smooth, and there is nothing to grip.
06:23And here is the part that makes it better than any snap trap.
06:28It resets itself. Every time.
06:31One bucket can catch a dozen rats in a single night, because every rat that climbs up and steps out,
06:37resets the trap for the next one.
06:40You are not running around resetting 50 snap traps.
06:44You set one bucket, and you let it work all night while you sleep.
06:48Now, you have a choice to make about that bucket, and I want to be honest with you about it.
06:53You can run it dry, or you can run it wet.
06:57If you put a few inches of water in the bottom, the rat that falls in will drown, and you
07:02will have a bucket of dead rats in the morning to bury or burn.
07:06That is the way many old farmers did it, and it is effective, and there is nothing to tend.
07:12But if it troubles you to drown an animal, and it troubles some folks, and I understand that, you can
07:19run the bucket dry.
07:20Leave the water out. The rats fall in and cannot climb out, and in the morning you have a bucket
07:26of live rats.
07:27Then you carry the bucket well away from your place, a good distance, a mile or more, or they will
07:34come right back, and you let them go.
07:36It takes more work, and you have to check it every morning so they do not suffer in there, but
07:42it is the gentler way, and it works just the same for the catching.
07:45I will tell you what I do. For a barn full of rats that are eating my grain and fouling
07:51my feed and breeding faster than I can keep up, I run it wet, because a rat infestation is a
07:58real danger to a farm, and it has to be ended quickly.
08:02For one or two mice that have wandered into the house in the fall, I run it dry and carry
08:08them out to the back field.
08:09You decide what sits right with you. Either way, the trap is the same.
08:15One more thing. You can buy a ready-made plank that clips on to a bucket, the kind that flips
08:21a rat in, for $10 or $15 at the hardware store, and they work fine.
08:26But you do not need it. A can and a wire that you already have in the shop will do
08:31the exact same job.
08:33Do not let anyone tell you that you have to buy something. That is the whole point of this video.
08:40Now, the trap is the part everybody wants to see. But I have to tell you the truth, the way
08:45my grandfather told me.
08:47The trap does not solve your rat problem. The trap cleans up the rats you already have.
08:53If you do not do the other half, you will be emptying that bucket forever, because new rats will keep
08:59coming as fast as you catch the old ones.
09:01The real work, the work that actually ends a rat problem, is taking away the two things a rat cannot
09:08live without, food and water.
09:10A rat can squeeze through a hole the size of a quarter, climb a brick wall, swim up a drain.
09:17You cannot keep them out by force. But you can make your place a place where there is nothing to
09:23eat and nothing to drink, and a rat will not stay where it cannot feed.
09:27So here is what we do, and what my mother drilled into all seven of my children.
09:33Every bit of grain, every sack of feed, every bag of flour or corn meal or chicken scratch goes into
09:41metal.
09:42Not plastic. A rat chews through plastic like it is bread. Metal cans with tight lids, or metal bins.
09:49My granary is lined, so there is not a gap a rat can work open.
09:55The feed for the chickens is in a metal can with a lid that latches.
09:59If a rat cannot get into your food, you have taken away the main reason he came.
10:04You do not leave feed out overnight. You feed the chickens what they will eat, and what is left, you
10:11put away.
10:12The dog's dish comes in at night. Spilled grain gets swept up, not left on the floor.
10:18A rat lives on what you waste. Stop wasting it where he can reach, and you have cut his living
10:24off.
10:25And water. A rat needs to drink, and he needs it often. Fix the dripping spigot. Fix the leak under
10:33the trough.
10:34Do not leave standing water sitting out. Take away his drink, and you have shortened his life and driven him
10:41to look elsewhere.
10:42Then you close what you can. Walk your barn, your foundation, your shed in the daylight, and look for the
10:50holes.
10:51You will find them because rats leave a mark. A dark, greasy smudge around the holes they use from the
10:58oil in their fur, rubbing the same spot day after day.
11:02The old people called them rub marks. Where you see a rub mark, you have found a rat highway.
11:09Stuff those holes with steel wool packed tight, or cover them with hardware cloth, or patch them with metal.
11:16A rat will chew through wood and foam and plastic, but he cannot chew through steel.
11:22Take away the food, take away the water, close the holes, and run your bucket to clean out the ones
11:29already there.
11:30That is the whole system. That is how a farm stays clear of rats without a drop of poison.
11:37I want to tell you about the other thing my grandfather kept, because it is the oldest rat control there
11:43is, and it is alive and purring.
11:45A cat. Not a pampered house cat. A working barn cat. My grandfather always kept two or three good mousers
11:54in the barn, and so do I.
11:56A barn cat does not need to catch every rat to earn his keep.
12:00The truth is, the smell of a cat alone will send rats looking for somewhere else to live.
12:06A rat is no fool. He knows a cat patrols that ground, and he moves his nest off your property
12:13to somewhere safer.
12:14A good cat is worth more than any trap and any poison, and he works every night for the price
12:20of a little food and a dry place to sleep.
12:24Now, I will be honest. A cat alone will not clear out a heavy infestation fast.
12:29When the rats have already taken over, you need the bucket and the sealing and the cleaning, all at once,
12:35to break the back of it quickly.
12:37But once you have driven them down, a cat or two is what keeps them gone, year after year, with
12:43no work from you at all.
12:45The owls that nest in my barn do the same job at night from the air.
12:50Providence gave us the rat catchers already made.
12:53We just have to keep them around and let them do what they were made to do.
12:57My grandfather used to say a farm without a cat is just a rat farm that is not noticed yet.
13:03He was not wrong.
13:05Now I want to take a moment, because this is the part that matters, and it is the part the
13:10man in the truck will never tell you.
13:11Think about who profits when you have rats.
13:15The pest control company profits, and they profit most when the problem never quite ends.
13:21You call them, they come, they put out poison in a locked box, and they set you up on a
13:26contract.
13:27Every month, or every quarter, a man comes and refills the poison and sends you a bill.
13:33Now think hard about that arrangement.
13:35If the poison truly ended your rat problem for good, you would not need the monthly visit.
13:42The whole business is built on the rats coming back.
13:46The poison kills the ones that ate it, but it does nothing about the hole in your foundation,
13:52or the open feed sack, or the dripping spigot.
13:55The things that brought the rats in the first place.
13:57So the rats come back, and the bill comes back, and you pay it, month after month, year after year.
14:06That is not an accident.
14:08That is the design.
14:11The poison companies profit the same way.
14:14A box of single feed bait is not cheap, and you go through it, and you buy more,
14:20and the rats keep coming because you never fixed the reason they came.
14:25You are buying a cure for the symptom and never touching the cause, and there is good money
14:32in selling you that cure forever.
14:35And here is the deeper thing, the thing my grandfather understood without ever saying it
14:41in these words.
14:42A rat problem is not really a rat problem.
14:46It is a food problem and a building problem.
14:49It is open grain and standing water and a hole nobody patched.
14:55The industry sells you a chemical answer to what is really a housekeeping answer,
15:01because there is no money in housekeeping.
15:04Nobody can sell you a monthly contract to sweep up your spilled feed and seal your foundation
15:11and keep a cat.
15:12We never paid for rat control because we never needed to.
15:18We sealed the grain.
15:19We fixed the leaks.
15:21We patched the holes.
15:23We kept the cats.
15:25And when the rats got ahead of us anyway, we set a bucket and let it work for free.
15:31Two dollars and a little attention against a bill that never ends.
15:36That is the choice once you see it clearly.
15:40So here is what I want you to do this week.
15:43Tonight, after dark, go quietly into your barn or your basement or wherever you have heard them
15:50and just listen.
15:52You will hear them moving.
15:54In the morning, take a flashlight and look for the rub marks, those dark, greasy smudges
16:01around the holes.
16:02That tells you where they travel.
16:04Then set your bucket.
16:07Five-gallon bucket, a tin can on a wire across the top spinning free, a dab of peanut butter
16:14in the middle, a board for a ramp.
16:17Wet if you have the stomach for it, dry if you would rather carry them off.
16:22Set it right on the path where you saw the rub marks, against a wall where they run.
16:28Set two or three buckets if it is a bad infestation.
16:32Let them work all night.
16:35While the buckets do their work, do the real work.
16:39Put every bit of feed and grain into metal with a tight lid.
16:43Sweep up the spills.
16:45Fix the leaks and pour out the standing water.
16:49Pack steel wool into every hole you found.
16:53And if you do not have a cat, go find yourself a good barn cat from a farm or a
16:58shelter.
16:59There are more than enough that need a home and a job.
17:03Do all of it together.
17:05The bucket without the ceiling just empties forever.
17:09The ceiling without the bucket leaves you with the rats you already have.
17:14Together they end it.
17:16This week, for the price of a bucket, with no poison and no monthly bill.
17:23Tell me in the comments below.
17:25Go look for those rub marks and tell me what you found, and how old your place is, and whether
17:30it is a house or a barn or a coop.
17:33I read every one of these, and I have heard some stories from you all that would curl your hair.
17:39Next time I am going to show you the way my grandfather kept the moles and the voles out of
17:45the kitchen garden
17:46without poison and without traps.
17:49One simple thing he planted along the edge of every bed that they would not cross.
17:55You will not believe it is that simple, but it is, and it has worked on this farm for a
18:00hundred years.
18:01Until then, seal your grain, keep a cat, patch your holes, and remember,
18:08the people who built this country with their hands knew things we are only just starting to remember.
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