How to control Rodents in the home and garden
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A. Non-chemical control of rodents
1. Inspect field, houses and godown often regularly.
2. Hygiene
I) Houses and buildings
♦ Keep stores and good tidy.
♦ Sweep stores and houses everyday.
II) Fields
♦ Cut and burn unnecessary vegetation.
♦ Keep fences clean (particularly near houses).
♦ Burn crop residues and rubbish piles.
♦ Keep dikes small between paddy fields.
♦ If possible, flood fields.
3. Proofing
I) Buildings
♦ Materials used for proofing the buildings and containers should be hard enough to resist the gnawing the rat that is cement, metal, bricks.
♦ Cracks and holes in walls should be closed and doors should provide a tight fit.
♦ Doors should be closed tightly particularly godowns when it is not used.
♦ All wooden frames, doors and windows to which rat have access, should be protected by metal strips to prevent rats cutting hole.
♦ In village hunts which can not be made rat proof, all food should be kept in rat proof containers.
II) Trees Metal sheet (about 50 cm wide) tightly fit around the trunks of trees at least 2 meter height to stop rats and squirrel climbing up.
4. Trapping
♦ Kill or snaps trap: Kill the animal upon being trap.
♦ Life trap: Traps in which the animal caught in alive.
5. Smoking and watering
Rats can be driven out by pouring water or smoke into the burrows. If available, a net should be placed on top of the burrow system to prevent rat escaping.
6. Digging
By digging the burrow system, rats can be killed.
B. Chemical control of rodents
1. Poison bait
a) Single dose poison (acute poison): These poison act rapidly and killed rats after a single feed. e.g. Zinc phosphide.
b) Multiple dose poison (chronic poison): These poison act slowly and an animal dies generally a few days after taking of poisons. e.g. Anticoagulant.
2. Tracking powders
Some Anticoagulant rodenticide are offered as tracking powder. These powder are sprayed on the ground along runways or near holes.
3. Gassing
To gas burrows a teaspoonful of poison powder (NaCN, HCN) or 1-2 tablets (phostoxin) are placed inside an open hole then all holes are tightly closed with earth.
4. Fumigation
Methyl bromide and phostoxin are very effective in killing a resident rat population in stores
