What’s the difference between rat bait and paste?

Firstly, it’s important to note the difference between paste, rat bait, and rat poison. We talk about paste often, because it’s what we use in our Automatic Paste Pump. It’s the food source that attracts rodents to your trap. This could be described as rat bait, but for us, rat bait feels a lot like rat poison. Rats are attracted to poisons, as they’re usually mixed into a grain-based block. The rodents come in for a snack and don’t realise it’s actually poison, resulting in a slow death.

To understand what the best rat bait (or paste) is, we decided to meet with paste expert Christine. She’s got an MSc in Molecular Biotechnology and a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology, so she’s the perfect person to help us out. Christine shares how to catch a smart rat when they visit your trap and how you can better attract them in.

What foods are rats looking for?

"All three rat species (the black, brown and Kiore or pacific rat) that live in New Zealand are omnivorous, meaning they eat both plant and animal matter. This allows them to eat whatever food is available at the time."

"In the bush this could be seeds, berries, bird eggs, and insects while in urban settings rats will eat pretty much any human food items (fresh or in the compost or rubbish bin), pet food, and anything else they have access to. On farms and in food production facilities rats will eat any crops, fruit, etc. available."

“They will eat whatever is available and safe to eat, and if they cannot eat an item where they find it, they will take it away with them.”

Why do they eat what they do?

"Rats need to get enough energy from their diet to survive and reproduce. They will eat whatever is available and safe to eat, and if they cannot eat an item where they find it, they will take it away with them. High energy foods that contain lots of sugar and fat are particularly desirable as small amounts of them will provide lots of energy and therefore less foraging is required."

What foods make the best sources for your trap?

"As rats eat a large variety of foods, it is possible to use many different types of food to irresistibly attract a rat. Often availability determines what people use as pastes, and in New Zealand peanut butter and chocolate or Nutella are popular and work well. [It’s important to note, if you’re using peanut butter or Nutella as a food source it will only be fresh for around a week, so you’ll need to refresh this regularly to stop mould growing].

If you know what the rat you are trying to trap is already eating, and therefore knows to be safe, it can be a good idea to use the same type of food as paste. However, it is very important to restrict the rat's access to its previous food source. For example, if the rat is eating chicken feed, make sure to put the chicken feed in a rat-proof feeder, if the rat is feeding on your household rubbish, put the rubbish in a rat-proof bin. Any food source that competes with your paste will reduce your chance of attracting the rat into your trap.

Trap placement is also very important. No matter what paste you provide, rats have to feel safe to eat in order to want to eat the paste in your trap. To easily find places where rats feel safe to eat we have developed trap location cards that will tell you where the best location is to place a trap. In addition, the chocolate paste in the detector cards will make the rats familiar with this paste and they will then seek out more of this yummy food which you will provide inside a trap."

“Any food source that competes with your paste will reduce your chance of attracting the rat into your trap.”

What do we use in Goodnature paste?

"We’ve developed a secret formula which is a great high energy food for rats but also makes it long-lasting. We can’t share the exact ingredients, but our testing shows it’s certainly appealing. Our traps allow users to interact with them as little as twice per year, therefore the longevity of our pastes is very important."

Why do they work so well?

"Goodnature pastes have an attractive smell and taste for rats and provide them with lots of energy in the form of sugar and fat. When using the Automatic Paste Pump, fresh paste is provided over a long time, making sure there is always paste present for the rat to feed on."

How do you test what the best rat paste is?

"We field test our pastes to make sure any new pastes we develop are as good as our existing pastes, but our success measures can be quite different from traditional studies where people compare a whole range of fresh food items to each other.

To us, it is important that our pastes are long lasting and when used with our self-resetting traps they allow people to make the most of this amazing feature of our traps and to achieve their conservation goals or catch those pesky rats around their house with minimum personal input. There is not much use in comparing our chocolate paste to say peanut butter, as the peanut butter would go mouldy after a few days, or to Nutella as this would melt in the sun."

So there you have it, no matter where you're trapping, what you're targeting or where you are on your trapping journey, Goodnature has a formula that can work for you at your place. If you have any questions or want to chat to us about pastes, reach out to us at hello@goodnature.co.nz.