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Will a rat in the attic have a nest of babies?
Your home is perfect for you to live in - you with your partner and kids,
and also the pets too. If your home is perfect for you to live in, it will
be perfect for other creatures to live in. That’s because it provides three
important things - warmth, shelter from predators and the elements, and also
a source of food and water. These are three things that a rat needs in order
to stay fit and healthy, and also to raise
a young family of its own.
An average female rat will experience mating urges many times per year, as
many as 15 times per year, and it will be throughout the year too. During
one 6 hour ‘session’, one female rat can mate as many as 500 times - she’ll
keep mating until there are no more attentive males around to see to her, or
until her mating urges run out. Either way, she makes damn sure that she
gets herself pregnant. This gestation period will vary, but usually falls
somewhere in between 21 and 26 days. The older she gets, the fewer babies
she has, and female rats are known to go through a ‘menopausal’ stage at
around 18 months to two years of age, during which the speed at which she
reproduces will decrease. She can still have babies though, and that’s what
you need to remember.
The average litter size is around eight to ten babies. The average rat will
also reach sexual maturity at about three to four months of age, and they
will generally live for a couple of years. Three years is a pretty good
lifespan for the average “wild rat. They often fall prey to humans and other
predators before that point.
If that one female rat managed to get pregnant 15 times per year, and she
had 10 babies each time, she would produce about 150 young in just that one
year. Oh, and for the record, rats will mate with brothers and sisters too.
They are a species that doesn't recognise incest.
Bearing in mind that rats can mate and have young all year round, and they
are doing so regularly, one rat problem soon becomes a very big rat problem,
and there's a good chance this will be going on undetected in your home for
a long period of time. It will only be when there are more rats in our home
or property that you’ll start to see signs - droppings, urine, staining, and
maybe even gnawing and damage, and by that point, you could have a great
number of rats running around. The more rats you have, the longer it will
take and the harder it will be to get rid of them.
There are things that will change how frequently rats mate, and if the
weather is particularly hot or cold, you may find that their reproducing
will slow down a little. Generally, however, thee rats will have babies
whatever the weather, and that’s why you wouldn't want them in your home for
very long.
Rats will breed at an astounding rate, so there is a very high chance that
any rat you encounter in your home will be a mother with her young in tow.
This certainly makes the catching-process much more difficult, as you will
have more than one rat to catch now, but you can still achieve a rat-free
home. The trick is to inspect and repair any holes and damage, and then use
lethal snap traps to ensure every single rats is eliminated from your
property. It's not the nicest job in the world, but it's definitely a
necessary one. One rat in your home is one too many, and sadly, there is
rarely just the one rat!
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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