Hi Bellasmom
So sorry to hear about your rat problem. I know how annoying rats can be. The only thing I can suggest is to scatter the kitten biscuits as widely as possible on the ground. The rat would still be able to access it, but it would be much harder work for it. Maybe it would give up and go somewhere which isn’t so much like hard work. I had one here a while back and scattered the food. Since there have been more hogs around it has disappeared, but when it was still visiting the hogs did manage to find some of the food as well. The hogs seem quite happy foraging for the kitten biscuits.
If you try using the trap again, I was told once that chocolate spread is good for mouse traps, so maybe would be for a rat trap, too (?). Being a paste they can’t grab a piece of it and escape before the trap springs, but chocolate may also be enticing for rodents in general. But if you use the rat trap again, try to get it as high off the ground as possible – hogs can be surprisingly good climbers and there have been reports of hogs being caught in them. Obviously I don’t known the set up of your hog house, but worry that may be a bit low. But you would need to use it on a night when there isn’t other food. So may have to stop offering other food for a while.
Good luck. Fingers crossed the rat goes and the hogs return.
