How to Make Rat Poison Using Baking Soda [Step by Step] (2023)

In general, commercial poisonous rat-killing baits endanger the health of your pets and native wildlife that eat dead rodents as part of their diet. So you want to make rat poison from baking soda, asafer homemade bait alternative made from eco-friendly baking soda. This type of bait uses rats' biology to get rid of them as they cannot burp or vomit.

How to make rat poison with baking soda

When rats eat baking soda, the bicarbonate reacts with the acid in their stomach, creating foam and releasing carbon dioxide gas. However, since they cannot burp, the gas cannot escape, resulting in death. This is the mechanism behind baking soda's poison.

Sodium bicarbonate, also known colloquially as baking soda or baking soda, is a white, odorless powder or granular substance. Due to its brine and alkaline properties, it has a salty and slightly bitter taste with a pH in the 8–9 range. The substance decomposes at 50 °C (122 °F) and is considered non-toxic. Baking soda is commonly used as a leavening agent in baking to allow baked goods to rise.

Since rodents aren't just attracted to baking soda, you'll need to mix it with other ingredients that they find appealing. Below are ways to make rat poison from baking soda:

1. Baking soda and chocolate rat poison

Rats are attracted to chocolate, including chocolate cake. You don't have to go to the trouble of making a cake, though. Simply mix equal parts chocolate batter or brownie mix with baking powder.

Ingredients:

Chocolate cake or brownie mix
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Materials:

Flat Disposable Bowl (can be made by cutting off the bottom of a plastic soda bottle)
A pack of milk
Yogurt container or deep plastic jar lid

To make baking soda rat poison from the chocolate cake mix, follow these steps:

Combine equal parts of the chocolate cake and baking soda mixture and mix thoroughly in a shallow container. A few heaped teaspoons of this should suffice as bait.
The mixture can be used in dry form provided the rat has access to a separate shallow bowl of drinking water, as it needs water when eating dry food.
The mixture should be used wet by gradually adding a small amount of water and mixing thoroughly, adding more and more water until a thick paste is formed.
Finally, place a shallow bait container nearbywalls or in places frequented by rats.

Leave the bait in the same spot for a few days as rats are usually wary and may explore the bait for a while before eating it once they feel safe.

2. Rat poison with sugar and baking powder

Combine the flour, sugar, and baking powder by adding 2/3 cup (85 g) flour and 2/3 cup (135 g) sugar to a small bowl. Mix them evenly to create a mixture that will entice the rat to the baking soda. Then add an equal amount of baking soda to the mixture and mix thoroughly.

An alternative method is to mix baking powder and sugar directly without flour. Alternatively, cornmeal can be replaced with flour and hot chocolate with sugar. To ensure the mixture is well blended, puree in a blender until a finer consistency is obtained. Another alternative is to mix 1 part baking soda with 2 parts peanut butter.

Place bins where rats have been sighted, e.g. B. near a furnace or shed and along their paths. If you notice areas where rats have been digging, place a container nearby for them to nibble on. Look for small and elongated rat droppings as this could be an indication of where rats may be staying.

The baking soda reacts with the acid in the rats' stomachs, causing carbon dioxide to build up, ultimately leading to the rat's death.

3. Rat poison with baking soda and peanut butter

Rats are very attracted to peanut butter, probably due to its rich composition of candy, fats and oils, protein, and strong smell. In this section, you will learn how to make your own rat poison using baking soda and peanut butter.

Ingredients:

peanut butter
Backpulver

Materials:

Small disposable saucers (can be made from plastic jar lids or cut out of a plastic bottle or milk carton).

To prepare rat poison using baking soda and peanut butter rodent bait, follow these steps:

In a small container, mix equal parts peanut butter and baking soda until well combined. A few heaped teaspoons of it are enough.
Place 2 or more heaping teaspoons of bait mix in each disposable coaster.
Place the bait stands near walls or in places frequented by rats.

Let the poison soda sit in the same spot for several days. Rats seem wary and may test the bait before eating if they feel safe.

4. Poison the rat bait with flour and baking powder

This Baking Soda Rat Poison recipe uses a combination of ingredients to create a cake that attracts rats. You will need the following:

flour of any kind
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Materials:

To make rat poison with baking soda you will also need:

Small disposable saucers (can be made from a plastic jar lid. Cut from a plastic bottle or milk carton

Here's how to make baking soda rat poison using flour and sugar bait:

Mix equal parts flour and baking powder in a small container. For added effect, add a small amount of chocolate powder or sprinkles. Stir the mixture well until well blended.
Gradually add some water to the mixture and stir until a firm dough forms.
Place 2 or more teaspoons of bait mix in each disposable saucer.
Place the saucers in places where rats frequent, such as on walls or in tight spaces.

Leave the baking soda rat bait in the same spot for several days. By then, the rats would carefully examine the bait and determine that it was safe to eat.

What to do with baking soda, rat poison?

Rats have bad eyesight, okay20 times worse than humans. Their depth perception is also poor, making it difficult for them to judge whether objects are close or far away.

However, this is offset by their caution, preferring to run from place to place along walls or paths and avoid open spaces.

With this in mind, we can increase the effectiveness of baking soda rat poison by placing two or more baits about 2 meters apart along a wall or on rodent trails.

On the other hand, their sense of smell is very keen and they tend to reject anything contaminated with human smells. Therefore, you must wear gloves when handling bait containers and traps to eliminate the smell.

How Much Baking Soda Kills Rats?

LD50, which stands for Lethal Dose 50%, is an acute toxicity measure and represents the amount of a toxin required to kill 50% of the exposed population in a given period of time. The oral LD50 of sodium bicarbonate for rats is 4220 mg/kg.

Rats are much larger, and their body weight varies between 200 and 500 grams. At a lethal dose of 4,220 milligrams per kilogram, or 4.22 milligrams per gram of body weight, it takes 72-105 milligrams of baking soda to kill exposed rats.

In recipes like flour, chocolate, and peanut butter, the amount of baking powder used is half or one-third of the total ingredients. Consequently, rats would need to eat two to three times the weight of prepared bait to achieve 50% mortality.

The maximum amount that the largest rats would need to ingest to achieve 50% mortality would be around 200-300 milligrams of bait, depending on the formulation. To achieve a higher death rate, the amount would have to be doubled, which would be 400-600 milligrams, or 0.4-0.6 grams. This is a relatively small amount, especially when compared to a teaspoon of water, which is around 5.0 grams weighs ten times its weight.

How Fast Does Baking Soda Kill Rats?

I can confirm that it takes 24 to 36 hours to kill a rat. In some cases, depending on the rat's weight, it may take a little less than 24 hours.

Given that the chemical reaction between sodium bicarbonate and rodent stomach acid is very fast, it could be a relatively quick process.

Add half a teaspoon of baking soda to a jar with a few inches of vinegar and watch as it quickly bubbles, foams, and swells. It is recommended to do this experiment in the kitchen sink to avoid making a mess.

Based on my biomedical background, I suspect that the rapid swelling of the rodent's stomach would likely compress the diaphragmatic muscles that control breathing, causing the rodent to suffocate.

There are many claims online that baking soda baits kill rodents by bursting their stomachs, but I have my doubts and without an autopsy it would be difficult to verify. This is a rather uncomfortable subject, which may explain why no one has attempted to determine the time of death of the rodents after ingestion of the bait.

Compared with commercial poisonous rat bait, using baking soda as bait for rats and mice is much more humane. Commercial poison baits take one to two weeks to control the slow internal bleeding, which is a long and cruel method of pest control. On the other hand, with baking soda baits there is no risk of poisoning other wild animals or pets if they eat dead rodents.

Rats don't belch or vomit the baking soda poison

Vomiting is a natural defense mechanism to remove toxic substances from the body. However, this reflex is not possible in rodents such as rats, mice, rabbits and guinea pigs due to a combination of physiological and neurological limitations.

Physiological factors that prevent vomiting include a weak diaphragm, the muscular layer beneath the lungs, and the anatomy of the stomach, which prevents the stomach's contents from being regurgitated.

Vomiting is a complex reflex controlled by specific neural circuits in the brain. Two separate centers, the vomiting center and the chemoreceptor trigger zone (CTZ), located in the medulla oblongata, are thought to play a key role in regulating this reflex. The medulla oblongata is the part of the autonomic central nervous system that connects the brainstem directly to the spinal cord and is located at the base of the brainstem.

When scientists conducted studies on the brainstems of laboratory mice and rats, administering drugs that would normally induce vomiting in other animals, they observed decreased activity in the nerves, mouth, throat, and arms normally associated with vomiting are. This suggests that rodents lack the neural circuitry necessary for vomiting.

This is why rat and mouse poison is so effective, because after ingesting the poison bait, they are unable to vomit it up and excrete it from the body.

However, rodents have developed alternative methods to avoid ingesting or coming into contact with toxins. They rely on their sense of taste to avoid ingesting substances that could make them sick or fatal. If they have already ingested something toxic, they will consume the clay to absorb the toxins, preventing them from being absorbed into their bodies. This behavior, known as pica, when ingesting non-nutritive substances such as kaolin (clay) is a disease response in rats and is similar to vomiting in other species. It can be regulated by the same mechanisms as human emesis.

Final thoughts: Make rat poison out of baking soda

Rats are kept in unsanitary conditions and can transmit diseases to humans, posing a potential health risk. The most common disease transmitted by these rodents is salmonellosis, which occurs when food is contaminated with their saliva or feces and transmits salmonella bacteria. Given these concerns andpossible property damage, it is advisable to take quick action to remove rats from your home. If you suspect a serious rat problem, contact the owner or a local pest specialist.