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How to Get Rid of Muskrats



Muskrats are not a common pest; in fact most people will never even see one. The only way that muskrats can be a pest is if you live very close to a body of water in which case the damage they make can cost you a lot of money. The damage will mostly come from a muskrat’s burrowing. If you are for example a rice farmer, a muskrat will not only damage the levees, but it will also consume a lot of the rice. They damage water vessels as well as dams, canals and reservoirs. Needless to say, if there are levees around a muskrat will do damage to it. Getting the muskrat problem under control is therefore of extreme urgency in these situations. Many people opt to try a few remedies at home and here are some you may be interested in trying.

Other Problems With A Muskrat Population
Muskrats can become aggressive, especially during mating season. Another problem is that they can reproduce rather quickly; in fact a muskrat’s litter can be somewhere around 15 as a maximum, but even if you were to get the average of 6 muskrat babies you can have an infestation pretty quick. Muskrats have as many as six litters per year with an average of babies then that would mean a total of 36 new adorably destructive baby muskrats. Getting the problem under control before it becomes too big should be a priority. The problem is that because of their fast reproduction cycle it is almost impossible to know for sure if you captured them all. There are traps available, and there is also pest control that can assist you to get the job done.



Traps
The easiest way to get rid of muskrats is catching them. The traps are available at hunting stores or can be special ordered. Chances are that you will not have to special order the traps because at most specialty stores such as hunting outfitters, the muskrat traps are some of the most popular on the market. Muskrats are also not that difficult to trap. If you know where to place the traps then you will be able to catch the muskrats within a couple of nights. Knowing where is easy. All you have to do is observe the animal and take note of any particular habitual patterns it follows. When you place the traps you’ll want to have them in the center of these paths to optimize your chances. The best bait for these guys is wet cat food. The one thing that you have to be concerned about is the number of muskrats that may already be in the area. You may need more than a couple of traps to get the job done. There are some cases where you may find that calling a wildlife removal service is a lot cheaper than buying the number of traps necessary, but that is completely up to you. The reason why traps are the most effective way to get rid of muskrats is because there are very few other ways to get rid of them. Repellents simply don’t work well in this wet environment. Many suggest owl statues or other predatory shapes, but these also have low success rates reported. To this day there are no approved repellents in the market and poisons are rarely available as well. Poisons are also not the best idea because they can affect other types of wildlife as well as household pets. A person walking a dog may come across the poison and if the dog is interested in the poison that may be all she wrote for that dog. Fumigants are also not available for muskrats so the best solutions are to trap them yourself of hire someone to trap and relocate them for you.

Other muskrat information: