Thread: Rat/ Mouse Poison

Originally Posted by 350RRC

Not necessarily, you can minimise the risk. Here's one option:

MOUSEOFF(R) Zinc Phosphide Bait — animal control technologies

DL

Really interesting bait and mechanism. Does it kill seed eating birds?

Originally Posted by 350RRC

Hi Slunnie,

It probably could if they could see or access the seed. It is really intended for broad acre applications and from memory it be should broadcast at night over existing crops.

The point is that the active ingredient is highly toxic to rodents but has a negligible half life in their bodies, so consumption of the deceased by birds of prey is no threat.

The active ingredient is similar to what is in the pellets used to gas rabbits, but becomes active after being exposed to stomach acid, rather than moisture and inhalation. Death would be pretty quick.

That company makes other rodenticides for 'domestic' use and have gone to a fair bit of effort to minimise collateral damage by giving explicit deployment instructions.

DL

I thought it was a really interesting way to approach it and using stomach acid to trigger and neutralise the reaction to cause death only in the animal that eats the bait is a great idea. What made me wonder is that there are so many more birds that eat seed, and they all flock when seed goes down on the surface, but if the seed eating birds will also trigger the same reaction in their gut also and if the reaction is also terminally toxic to them also.