Rats and rat trapping circus

Rats and bandicoots are havoc-making pests nearly everywhere and our garden area is no exception.  Trapping them to reduce their numbers and troubles they cause is a perpetual circus.  

A box rat trap had been set with a 'vade' piece as bait food and kept in a certain spot in the garden overnight.  

Morning...  nothing had been trapped. It was the wrong place for that occasion though they frequent that area. I noticed a burrow opening that was not disturbed [I had kept some dry leaves there] the previous evening, now open and disturbed, thus indicating the burrow resident's presence and fresh movement.  The location of this opening was at the corner of the compost pit where we dump kitchen scrapings and other small organic matter.   I now kept the trap near this opening of the burrow... [Picture].......

........and walked a few feet away to check something in the garden.  Lo and behold! "Bonk"! 
The aroma of the 'vade' bait had drawn the burrow resident and into the trap, within literally two minutes!  Immediately, I decided to give this trapped rat a beautiful ride, fully free, on my scooter to be released safely a mile away.  Sometimes some rats are lucky to get free bicycle rides.  This one was getting a scooter as I had just then returned from my bicycle ride. 

This is another hole nearby that will have a link to the one in the pit.

They dig up holes like these in search of earthworms, often damaging plant roots. 

 

[Video, 22 seconds] Quite a grown up rat that was!

When I opened the spring lid, it saw a lovely drain in front of it and happily jumped out in joy of the trap to its new environs where it is sure to find new friends.  

Due to this pest's proliferation, such releases have become fairly regular.  I release them at different places away from homes. 

Some record this.... trap-set, trapped, released a mile away  within ten minutes! 
:) :)

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Social media had given me some simple fun ideas of trapping mice. I did try a couple of them. One is the bottle trap.  It worked very well for small mice [bottle mouth was small].  It trapped 5-6 successfully.  One of them I took it to K.R.Nagar, 40 km away and released it at the cricket ground... ... I had gone to play our club cricket match that morning!  And my team mates were curiously looking at this contraption and the rodent in it!

I tried another with a bottle with a slightly wider mouth for fatter mice.  It worked, but since one mouse started to bite the bottle trying to escape, I discarded it. 

My friend's large garden has the problem of much larger and more ferocious bandicoots.  Since he is a fabricator himself, he made a strong cage-trap for these pests.  I had borrowed this once as one bandicoot had proliferated its generation.  I caught the big one - almost the size of a medium size cat!!  It roared like a tiger when I took it out to the far away park to release it. Here's that cage:

This is a juvenile bandicoot fearlessly feeding on rice grains we had put for the spotted dove. These are nocturnal but see their daring in daylight! 

They sometimes enter indoors [mainly in search of food] and it is another thrilling game.... they scamper like lightning.  Armed with a stiff broom and some reflexes I have knocked a few down unconscious after locking the doors and then threw them away from the house. 

A rat had entered the worship room a few years ago. Later it was successfully knocked out. 

Spotted owlets are natural predators but their number seems to have dwindled. Same are here in the south also.  This is a picture I took in Chandigarh. 

This is in the dark, perching on our house.

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