A Word About Rats

Rats are not the only animal responsible for destroying our native birds. Possums, ferrets, stoats, cats and dogs can also be pests. But rats are often found around urban dwellings during the winter and hence made an ideal choice for an inquiry for learning about a New Zealand pest.

Look at our photographs of this investigation below:

Room 18 Rat Detectives made tracking devices from triangular cardboard tubes. Inside the tube was lots of wet, sticky ink with a favourite food of rats, peanut butter!
The tracking tunnels were placed around rubbish bins and other places where we thought rats might like to visit and left outside over night.

The following morning, the Rat Detectives discovered rat footprints on the tracking devices.

Not only rat footprints but a huge hole had been eaten through the cardboard right where the peanut butter had been!

This rat tracking device is far more sophisticated than the earlier models. Ayla made this model at home.

Now rats had been discovered, it was time to put the rat trap together.

A piece of rat poison bait, was threaded onto a knotted wire and dangled from the inside of a piece of pvc drainpipe tubing with the help of a nail. A further piece of pvc tubing snuggly fitted over the above pieces, meaning no other animal could get to the bait.