Rodent baits and their effect on native fauna

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Originally Posted by trout1105

For the last 6-8 weeks we have been inundated with mice in this district.
I have deployed traps and baits and we are using about 500g of baits a day and the little buggers just keep on coming.
I do the rounds twice a day and drown the ones caught in the traps and pick up all the dead ones that have succumbed to the poison and put them all in a covered incinerator with a good handful of lime.
The resident magpies and butcher birds are still here in good numbers so I am certain that none of them have picked up a baited rodent so far [thumbsupbig]

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But what type of bait are you actually using?

DL

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Originally Posted by 350RRC

But what type of bait are you actually using?

DL

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Whatever brand I can get hold of at the moment ( I usually use "Talon" ) because the baits are a bit thin on the ground at the moment due to the numbers of rats/mice in the district.
I figured that if I control and contain where the carcasses' end up I should be able to protect the birds/snakes from getting poisoned [thumbsupbig]
Now we just need a bit of rain so it will be safe to cremate the little beggers, Much too dry and windy to fire up the incinerator at the moment.

We get massive mouse plagues in the Wimmera, where they literally carpet the ground. I'm not aware of anyone trying to bait them, it'd've been pointless. We did do a variety of things, including sticking bait over drums of water etc. When the mice eventually died off we then had the problem of the semi-feral cats and their half-grown kittens coming up to the house to be fed ....

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Originally Posted by Arapiles

We get massive mouse plagues in the Wimmera, where they literally carpet the ground. I'm not aware of anyone trying to bait them, it'd've been pointless. We did do a variety of things, including sticking bait over drums of water etc. When the mice eventually died off we then had the problem of the semi-feral cats and their half-grown kittens coming up to the house to be fed ....

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It's not as bad as that here But after 2 really good seasons and a mild winter the numbers of the mice/rats have most definately increased manyfold.
We usualy have a bit of a problem just after harvest for a couple of weeks and after a couple of applications of baits we get rid of them.
This year it has been ongoing for 6-8 weeks and there is still no end in sight at the moment and it is costing a small fortune in baits trying to control the numbers until winter comes and pretty much wipes them out.

When we first moved in about 15 years ago the place was infested with feral cats and foxes but over the years I have managed to pretty much eradicate them and only rarely will I see one now in my scope.

Every so often we have a "mast year" in NZ where the high-country beech trees have a prolific seeding event and the mice population explodes in our native forest and mountain areas. Fly fisherman look forward to such events as mice invariably end up in the rivers and end up as instant protein-packs and the trout get larger and larger.

Our flies become mice... and our Browns and Rainbows become mouse traps. [bigsmile]

Mouse flies | Global FlyFisher | Somewhat an oxymoron - a fly that's a mammal - but still a fun fly to tie, and not least to fish when the large fish are tuned in on a mouse menu.

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Originally Posted by windsock

Every so often we have a "mast year" in NZ where the high-country beech trees have a prolific seeding event and the mice population explodes in our native forest and mountain areas. Fly fisherman look forward to such events as mice invariably end up in the rivers and end up as instant protein-packs and the trout get larger and larger.

Our flies become mice... and our Browns and Rainbows become mouse traps. [bigsmile]

Mouse flies | Global FlyFisher | Somewhat an oxymoron - a fly that's a mammal - but still a fun fly to tie, and not least to fish when the large fish are tuned in on a mouse menu.

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I wish we had trout here, Just imagine how big they would grow when we get the occasional rabbit and roo infestations [thumbsupbig][biggrin]

Hard to beat tourists for making the trout huge... :whistling:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/9...7P7DRY37WE.jpg

Jim, have you seen Shaun Woods YouTube channel? He's got plenty of traps that a man with your skill sets could make.

https://youtu.be/pHwvVPT202Y

Years ago, in Tassie, I managed to catch a trout and one of the locals whacked it in his old smoker for me.

Gee, wasn't it good!

Where I am, when we mention 'Trout', it's taken as referring to 'Coronation Trout' a.k.a. 'Coral Trout'.

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Originally Posted by Tote

It's been a tough year with mice and rats, we've done two lots of baiting in town using TomKat type baits and have had a scare when small white dog ate a baited mouse a couple of weeks ago. Luckily he survived without any side effects.
On the farm we put out baits (screwed to shed timbers) and they were all gone in a week, we rebaited a couple of weeks later and they have only been nibbled a bit which is the usual state they are in for most of the year.
We did find a freshly dead rat outside the shearing shed the other week and thought no more of it and it was gone a couple of days later and we assumed a fox ate it, in which case then secondary poisoning was not an issue but I wonder what the impact is on native wildlife, particularly birds of prey.
We are lucky to have a few wedge tail eagles around the farm (I put my drone up a few weeks ago and very quickly had company of the wedge tail kind making me withdraw) but aside from the odd rat that didn't make it under cover to die we're not large scale baiters.
With the current plague further west does anyone have any experience of the effects of crop baiting on the bird life?

Random gratuitous drone footage here Mayfield 5 - Flyover western side - YouTube

Regards,
Tote

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I spread a few thousand hectares of Mouse-Off out west last year (October). Once the Phostoxin has kills its original victim there is very little toxin left for any secondary poisoning. Once the chemical has been activated (by moisture) it is basically spent.