Thread: Rat/ Mouse Poison

Originally Posted by johntins

Lotsa big tough guys killing tiny rodents.. Power, people. Tough you are. Not.

Come down to my place....... I'll show you some of the damage mice have done.... Cutting the grass one year I could see the damn things jumping in the grass infront of the mower. I have baits through all the sheds.... These baits aren't getting rid of the cats that are getting into my cars and damaging them though. So I need to "CatSack" as well.

seeya,
Shane L.

Originally Posted by Softroader

There was a piece in our local paper the other day about a surge in Owls being brought into local wildlife rescue centres, they present as lethargic by the side of the road, easily able to be picked up. 3 dead in the last two weeks alone, their organs shut down from eating baited mice etc.

I had one of those see-saw plastic type humane traps talked about further up the post, it was bright blue/yellow. Worked amazingly well.

See post #24. The active ingredients in all the different brands might work in a similar way (blood thinning) but there are huge differences in their potential effects on wildlife that eat the target species.

Using a poison that has the shortest half life in the body of the target cuts the risk of collateral damage very substantially; a bird of prey can eat crook rats but cannot accumulate enough residual poison to do serious harm over time.

DL

To the OP - not sure where you live and what sort of wild life you get in your area, but please be aware that poisoned vermin is one of the biggest killers of our native birds of prey - owls, hawks and eagles all fall foul to this practice, but particularly owls. Once a mouse or rat has its fill and runs out of the shed and gets picked off by an owl, they are both toast....

Probably not many people think about this, but if you're in an area where these birds are, intensive trapping is best IMO. There are many good videos on youtube on home traps which are very effective and lethal and these won't kill the native wildlife.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by Homestar

.................... Once a mouse or rat has its fill and runs out of the shed and gets picked off by an owl, they are both toast....
...............................

Cheers.

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

MOUSEOFF(R) Zinc Phosphide Bait — animal control technologies

DL

I came across some YouTube videos by this guy a while back. I haven't had any need to build one of the traps but there are a lot of videos so a lot of options for those that do.

YouTube

Theres also this one:
YouTube

Originally Posted by Homestar

To the OP - not sure where you live and what sort of wild life you get in your area, but please be aware that poisoned vermin is one of the biggest killers of our native birds of prey - owls, hawks and eagles all fall foul to this practice, but particularly owls. Once a mouse or rat has its fill and runs out of the shed and gets picked off by an owl, they are both toast....

Probably not many people think about this, but if you're in an area where these birds are, intensive trapping is best IMO. There are many good videos on youtube on home traps which are very effective and lethal and these won't kill the native wildlife.

Cheers.

I use the tomcat single feet poison (ratsack doesn't work). They mice absolutely LOVE the stuff. I have no idea of the flow on effect to wildlife. Certainly we have countless birds and ducks living on our property at this time

seeya,
Shane L.

I'm just putting it our there, those that want to continue will, I'm not the Police.

Having birds and ducks around your yard is no indicator as they don't eat mice and rats - how many Owls are hanging around? They frequent even heavily populated areas and a property like yours Shane, you should have some all the time - they are natural mousers themselves. Most that live on any acreage will have some if they aren't poisoning their primary food source. The inlaws have several on their property - not hard to spot or find if they are around.

Have a good friend whos whole life is looking after, caring for and nursing Australian Raptors. The Owl population is drastically lower in areas than it was even 20 years ago - most of the autopsies he has had done on dead owls (quite a lot as he is doing a research paper on this) have shown poisoning being the cause of death - randomly using large amounts of poison is proven to kill our native birds of prey.

Just sayin' - those with a conscience may wish to change their habits is all. His biggest allies in this area are School Children who he has classes with every week all around Melbourne. Once they see how beautiful these creatures are and how they fit into the ecosystem and how easy it is to prevent their deaths through not knowing any better, they will almost always go home and make sure their parents know as well.

I'm not being a greeny here, I just love our native wildlife and if someone here learns this lesson (I was just as guilty up to a few years ago) then they we might have more of these awesome creatures around in the future. I get that large mouse and rat populations are a problem and need dealing with, just maybe put a bit of thought around how and where you use poisons to control them.

Originally Posted by 350RRC

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

MOUSEOFF(R) Zinc Phosphide Bait — animal control technologies

DL

Thanks - a good option. Most of the talk here so far has been around far more toxic substances.