Rodenticide Usage

_Brian

2018na wrote: »

That’s seems to be a pretty good idea in fairness. I think if you try and depend on cats and predators alone you would literally be overwhelmed by rats in a matter of months. All I have here is a henhouse and about 1 acre beside a long term maize field. Always one or two feral cats about and would never see a winter without rat activity. This is in a place with very little hiding places or natural cover for rats. It’s fair to see that any farm provides a perfect habitat for rats even if you never actually see them.

We stopped using poison and have two cats and have less mice and rats than lever and that’s with kids throwing out feed to chickens etc.

Natural predators go out looking for the vermin 24*7*365, your block of poison sits there hoping they will leave the bag of meal alone and stumble across it.

2018na

_Brian wrote: »

We stopped using poison and have two cats and have less mice and rats than lever and that’s with kids throwing out feed to chickens etc.

Natural predators go out looking for the vermin 24*7*365, your block of poison sits there hoping they will leave the bag of meal alone and stumble across it.

The place is literally overun with rabbits which by the way I love to see. Feral cat spends his day stalking them. Once in a blue moon might catch a small one and your telling me that a cat will keep on top of a rat population. Not a hope in hell’s chance poison poison and more poison whilst changing the type every now and then. There dying in the burrows you rarely see a poisoned rat above ground

Stihl waters

2018na wrote: »

The place is literally overun with rabbits which by the way I love to see. Feral cat spends his day stalking them. Once in a blue moon might catch a small one and your telling me that a cat will keep on top of a rat population. Not a hope in hell’s chance poison poison and more poison whilst changing the type every now and then. There dying in the burrows you rarely see a poisoned rat above ground

There's no amount of education will teach someone with your mentality, hopefully the next generation will have a bit more cop on than ours and the crowd that went before us

2018na

Stihl waters wrote: »

There's no amount of education will teach someone with your mentality, hopefully the next generation will have a bit more cop on than ours and the crowd that went before us

You can talk about education and your theory’s on rats but I am telling you you would be over ran with rats without poison. Have you heard any stories of them getting into House’s in cities like Dublin through broken sewage and drainage systems. I have even known of them being in a shed where a man kept ferrets. Natural predators and education my bollocks

wrangler

2018na wrote: »

You can talk about education and your theory’s on rats but I am telling you you would be over ran with rats without poison. Have you heard any stories of them getting into House’s in cities like Dublin through broken sewage and drainage systems. I have even known of them being in a shed where a man kept ferrets. Natural predators and education my bollocks

I find you do what you have to do, it's not on to let rats overrun your farm,
They're vermin and they carry disease

Birdnuts

2018na wrote: »

You can talk about education and your theory’s on rats but I am telling you you would be over ran with rats without poison. Have you heard any stories of them getting into House’s in cities like Dublin through broken sewage and drainage systems. I have even known of them being in a shed where a man kept ferrets. Natural predators and education my bollocks

Thats a receipe for disaster in terms of resistance etc. Already there is evidence that the likes of Storm is now less effective from heavy/over use

Bog Man 1

2018na wrote: »

You can talk about education and your theory’s on rats but I am telling you you would be over ran with rats without poison. Have you heard any stories of them getting into House’s in cities like Dublin through broken sewage and drainage systems. I have even known of them being in a shed where a man kept ferrets. Natural predators and education my bollocks

We had a talk from I think rentokil and if you just stay throwing out poison you will always have a problem . We have the yard reasonably clean and have blocked up places where they can hide or access sheds . They have a few routes that they use to get into the yard and we have bait points on these routes . We seldom or ever have poison in the inner most bait points eaten . If the poison in the outer points is not eaten I know the inner ones are not going to be eaten . We even put trail cameras out to see what was going on .
A local factory puts out chocolate and only uses poison if it is eaten . This is what is coming down the line for farmers and only for the supermarkets and catering industry poison would be banned .

_Brian

Stihl waters wrote: »

There's no amount of education will teach someone with your mentality, hopefully the next generation will have a bit more cop on than ours and the crowd that went before us

Yea.
One hopes wisdom comes with age but there’s no guarantee.

Dinzee Conlee

I don't know - we wouldn't have used poison much here. There are cats, and we have a good few buzzards around...

But this winter, the place was over run with rats. If you were in the shed for any few minutes, you would see them darting about. There was maybe a foot or so of dung in one part, and they had tunnels going through it.
I tried traps, but didnt work - so poison was my only option...

It worked and fairly quick too. Put it down in a silage roll with wire as I think Base suggested, replenished when empty. Went from being over-run to not having any in a few weeks...

Wouldn't be a fan of poison, but at times its necessary I think...

PoorFarmer

I got one of the A24 traps in january cos I could see a pathway worn by the gate next to where I was feeding a few heifers on the outfarm. Never actually saw a rat but I wouldnt have much time to spend around the yard. Just checked the counter on it yesterday and it had 20 strikes. I've only seen one dead rat near it but I have noticed the neighbours cat hanging around the location alot. Is a good piece of kit but definitely on the expensive side. Will look at getting a couple for the home place this winter as there would be alot more foodstuff around there.

_Brian

Regarding cats, female cats are by far superior hunters.

Birdnuts

PoorFarmer wrote: »

I got one of the A24 traps in january cos I could see a pathway worn by the gate next to where I was feeding a few heifers on the outfarm. Never actually saw a rat but I wouldnt have much time to spend around the yard. Just checked the counter on it yesterday and it had 20 strikes. I've only seen one dead rat near it but I have noticed the neighbours cat hanging around the location alot. Is a good piece of kit but definitely on the expensive side. Will look at getting a couple for the home place this winter as there would be alot more foodstuff around there.

I got some "Tomcat" traps online and have to say they are very good. Had a rat issue near the compost heap 2 years back and they took out the colony within a few weeks. Used choclat chip cookies as bait, which they obviously found irresistable;)

blue5000

Mod note; 2018na don't post on this thread again.