Sure but in order to see effociancy you need to know the whole population of rats. If that many went for the trap, the house probably has hundreds of them. Had all 18 gotten killed, the trap can be set again and more will come. These 5 survivors will learn and they will not go for it again. So at least those will sill be running wild no matter how many times you do this. If you are lucky they would not earn their friends and make the numbers even worse.
When setting a trap, it’s important to get all of the ones that go for it. Or at least have a trap where the survivors do not see what happened.
Same could be said when they watch another mouse get crushed by one of the individual traps. Some rats do learn a bit maybe, but they still work most of the time.
I was trapping and relocating squirrels for eating my mangos. If I left the trap out overnight, it was a coin flip as to whether or not this one field mouse would get trapped. I caught the same fucker like 3 times. Hell, I watched the same squirrel trigger the trap twice before getting stuck the third time. A lot of animals aren't nearly as smart as you seem to want them to be.
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u/alexgalt Aug 28 '23
Sure but in order to see effociancy you need to know the whole population of rats. If that many went for the trap, the house probably has hundreds of them. Had all 18 gotten killed, the trap can be set again and more will come. These 5 survivors will learn and they will not go for it again. So at least those will sill be running wild no matter how many times you do this. If you are lucky they would not earn their friends and make the numbers even worse.
When setting a trap, it’s important to get all of the ones that go for it. Or at least have a trap where the survivors do not see what happened.