The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

22 caliber pest control

using a gun to kill a rat

We've still been having an issue with rats in the chicken coop.

I sent one to an early grave thanks to some help from a box of Rat Shot.

You can find a box of 20 for around 8 dollars. The small pellets spread out making it easy to hit a moving rodent while at the same time any extra shot ends up bouncing off nearby structures.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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Rifling
One thing to take note of with the shot--it won't work very well if the barrel of the .22 is rifled (has spiraling grooves cut into it to spin the bullets as they travel down the barrel). I remember when I was a kid that my dad, a crack shot, was having the darndest time getting rid of the rabbits in the garden with the same type of .22 shot shells you show in your photo. Then he realized that the rifled barrel was just spinning the shot wayward as soon as it passed the muzzle! Switched back to regular .22 shells and poof! ...no more rabbits.
Comment by Jake — Fri Mar 7 21:32:21 2014
Rats
There is a neat old e-book on project gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17243 Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher by Ike Matthews that goes into great detail on how to get rid of rats. We used the rat shot years ago in a worn 22 but I have used them in a good rifled barrel with good results but I have never tested the pattern. Pellet guns will get the job done but takes accuracy.
Comment by Gill — Sat Mar 8 10:38:39 2014
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