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If I have one rat, are there more?
Rats tend to live in groups, which we humans often refer to as packs. Within
a single pack of rats, there can be many individuals, usually formed into a
hierarchy with a more dominant males and females which rule the roost.
Females are likely to keep together with the babies in a nesting area, and
that nesting area is likely to be somewhere cool, quiet and dark. Your attic
provides the perfect place to raise a family if you’re a rat, and crawl
spaces, wall cavities and plenty of other places around your home (or
commercial building) can fall prey.
If you have one rat in your home, it won’t be long before you have a massive
infestation on your hands. This is definitely the case if you choose to
ignore the rat. Even a rat outside your home - in your back or front yard -
can be a bad sign. If a rat has come close enough to your home for you to
see it, particularly during the day, trouble is afoot. Rats are generally
nocturnal creatures, but they can be disturbed from their nests if humans
(or other prey) interrupt their slumbers, or if a really tempting source of
food can be found. Just like squirrels and hamsters, these rodents will
hoard food for later on if they find a good stash that they can take stuff
from regularly. This good stash cold be a chewed-through packet of rice in
the kitchen cupboard, or even dog or cat biscuits / dry food left in a bowl
on the pantry floor. The nest could be in your attic.
One rat will leave scent markings to other rats. This will consist of
pheromones in their urine, which they spray quite literally as they run
around. Other rats in the group will pick up on this and move in too, and it
won't be long before they’re all breeding. For the record,
a female can have five or six litters in one twelve month period, with as
many as ten to fifteen baby rats in each litter. They can also fall pregnant
as soon as they have given birth, even known in some cases to mate and fall
pregnant while they are still nursing their last litter to be born. Out of
the rat babies born, not all of them will survive, but when you consider
that it takes just three or four weeks for those babies to become sexually
active, and then the fact that they will breed with each other - siblings or
otherwise - and you can understand the rather large problem you have on your
hands.
One female rat + one male rat ALONE can produce somewhere in the region of
50 baby rats in one year. There can often be hundreds of rats in a single
pack. Even if there were ten rats in a single pack, and there were five
females in that pack, that’s still 250 potential baby rats in
one year, and that's before those baby rats start having babies too.
Culling a large portion of a rat pack will not encourage them to leave your
home. In fact, all it will do is encourage them to reproduce at a faster
rate. Females will fall pregnant the second they have given birth, and the
males will keep mating with every female they come across,
multiple-ejaculations in many cases, until rat numbers are built right back
up again. This is why you will often need to resort to using several
traps in your rat-trapping efforts, and also why you’ll want to get right on
the ball and make sure your home is sealed and well-protected immediately.
If you see one rat, there are almost always others hiding in the shadows
somewhere. They’re probably mating with each other right now …
For more rat information, visit our rat
removal tips page, or for more specific how-to instructions, read the
how to get rid of rats page
with 6 step-by-step instructions. If you have a problem with rats above your
ceiling in your house, read my rats
in the attic guide. The most important part of rat control is sealing
shut entry holes into the building, but after you've done that, you'll want
to know how to kill rats
humanely to complete the rat control job. If you need to hire professional
help in your city, click on my directory of over
200 rat removal companies servicing 95% of the USA. we can help your
with your rat problem!
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