Roof Rat Predators

Besides causing damage to the home they can spread germs and disease.

Roof rat predators.

While other rat species dig burrows roof rats live high above the ground in the yard residents may spot roof rat nests in trees firewood piles shrubs and vines. They may bite or chase you. Keeping roof rats out is therefore a difficult task. Dogs usually kill rats by shaking them and breaking their neck.

In addition to agility the black rat also uses its keen sense of hearing to detect danger and quickly evade mammalian and avian predators. Rodents construct their nests in sheltered places away from predators. Whether escaping the frigid cold predators or the extreme heat once you have them inside your house it is important to identify this issue before it is too late. Roof rats have many natural predators including.

Roof rats have soft and smooth fur that is typically brown with intermixed spots of black. Where do roof rats nest. Mice and roof rats will try to gain access to your home for several reasons. They have muscular front legs that make them efficient diggers and they have strong jaws that enable them to seize prey.

Their undersides are often white gray or black. Weasels are also natural rat predators. Adult roof rats measure 6 8 16 20 cm when combining their head and body length. In less urban settings rats are preyed on by weasels foxes and coyotes.

They can kill the rats in your walls attics cellars or garages. Roof rats are long and thin rodents that have large eyes and ears a pointed nose and a scaly tail. Cats are natural predators of rats but so are snakes and dogs. A bite from a roof rat can transmit disease to you including rat bite fever which is spread to humans through a bite or scratch.

Contrary to popular belief cats and dogs do not maintain control of rats. Are roof rats dangerous. True to their name roof rats prefer to build their colonies in attics and roofs where they are less likely to be disturbed by people and potential predators such as feral neighborhood cats or barn owls. All rats can show aggression when they feel threatened.

At the rate that these rats reproduce you may be fooling yourself that the family pet has caught them all and in doing so prolong the problem. These predators have little effect on the control of the black rat population because black rats are agile and fast climbers. They belong to the same family mustelid as wolverines otters and badgers and they are in the same genus mustela as ferrets and mink.