Rats are omnivores, which means that they will eat both plants and animal materials just like human do. Regardless of their types, rats are opportunistic eaters or they will eat just about anything humans eat.
Rats eating habits
Rats rely heavily on their sense of smell and taste when it comes to foraging for foods. Through their powerful sense of smell, rats are able to detect the smell of potential food sources from a considerable distance.
Rats also perform “quality checking” on every food they going to eat. Rats have taste receptors on their tongue called taste buds which make them enable to distinct five taste categories such as sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savoury.
Their strong sense of taste becomes their important survival skills while living in a wild environment in order to differentiate every single food they found, the one that considers high-quality foods or the one that will cause sickness or death.
What rats like to eat most?
What a rat eats depends on a lot on where they are living. Although they will eat just about anything, different rats in difference places indeed have several food preferences too. Rats in the wild will eat different things than those who find a spot near humans.
In the wild, rats more likely to be vegetarians. What do rats like to eat in the wild are:
- Fruit
- Grains
- Plants
- Seeds
- Vegetables
In the urban area or when rats entering house, they will eat just about any human food that they come across. What food rats like to eat at your house are those foods that especially high in fat, protein or sugar, such as:
- Meat
- Fish
- Cereal
- Fruits
- Bread
What is the best food to bait a rat trap?
Rats are picky eaters and still have certain food preferences regardless of where they live. Thus, many people mistakenly think that same bait will be working well to catch rats in many different places, for example using fruits as bait in the different property like house, factory or warehouse. But this is completely wrong!
For instance, rats that found heavily infested in a bakery shop will tend to lure with bait like wheat or cereal instead of fruit. So, when you put fruit as a bait, it is not impossible if the rats will take a longer time and/or even not interested at all to the bait you provide; because is not the usual foods that they used to eat.
In order to set-up an effective rat bait, you have to choose the food that they usually consume in your property because they already get used to it.
Expert rat removal
Is not easy to get rid of rats by yourselves, especially in choosing the best bait for trapping and removing rats in your house or business property. The best way to prevent and remove rats safely and efficiently is by enlisting the help of professional pest control.
The professional rat control will conduct the initial inspection to understand the rat’s behaviour as well as its characteristics at your property, including the type of rats infesting at your place, their hiding spots and eating habits.
Don’t wait another moment if you think you have rats. Contact Rentokil online to schedule an appointment today!
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