Rats & Mice

 

Rodents cause untold economical loss to farmers, food manufacturers and processors as well as causing damage to the structure and fabric of buildings.  Of the true rodents, the House Mouse is by far the most important economic and industrial pest followed by the brown rat and the black rat.

 

Rodents pose a threat to health and hygiene in shops, offices and commercial, industrial and residential buildings.  They are a major sources of diseases and failure to control them in public and commercial premises could incur fines under the Health Act and Occupational Health and Safety Act.

 

Rats and mice attain sexual maturity early in life.  The newly born are blind, hairless and dependant on their mother.  They have well developed nests, grow rapidly and they are weaned in about 4 weeks.  All rodents are omnivorous, and although they show a preference for cereals, each species differs in their food and water requirements and their feeding habits.

 

They contaminate more food than they can consume and are known to carry in excess of 20 rickettsial, bacterial, viral, protozoal and helminthic diseases, such as plague, salmonellosis, tuberculosis, murine fever, typhus fever, Weils’s disease and others.

 

One of the major reasons for controlling commercial rodents is that they are capable of breeding to large numbers in a short space of time.  It is estimated that under theoretical ideal conditions and providing all offspring survive, then one pair of mice are capable of producing more than 2000 offspring in one year.

 

The first objective should be the proofing of your property by blocking all access points before considering other methods.  Denying rodents food and water, on which they rely for their existence, coupled to a high standard of hygiene and sanitation will help enormously in their effective control.

 

When control over rodents cannot be achieved by exclusion or restriction, we then have to resort to pesticidal control.  These are formulations comprising of liquid and solid baits, gels, space aerosols, repellents, and rodenticidal powders.

 

Because of the short frequencies in the breeding habits of these pests it would be necessary to monitor your premises on an ongoing basis and renew the treatment on a regular and planned programme.