August 9, 2021
RATSENSE - Rodent Control Guide: Understanding Your Enemy and Their Characteristics
Rodent control is a major issue for everyone. Rats and mice have the ability to transmit diseases, contaminate food and cause structural damage. They have oversized front teeth for gnawing their way through barriers and they also use them to defend themselves. All around the world they have a large impact in terms of agricultural losses, damage to household items and even human health. The best way to prevent this is to stop the rodents from entering your home in the first place. However, for having effective rat control in Singapore, we need to understand the basic attributes and characteristics of rodents.
Behavioural characteristics of rodents and control measures:
- Rats are neophobic, which means when presented with freshly placed rodenticide bait, bait box or monitoring devices, rats have the natural survival mechanism to protect themselves from the new and unknown. Acclimatising the bait boxes at the most effective rodent spots before adding the baits in them will help the rodents to familiarise with the boxes over a period of days and thus avoid the fear of the new box once the bait has been introduced as compared to direct introduction of the bait.
- As they are neophobic, whenever they find something new to eat they take a small taste of bait to find whether it is of their liking or not. The acceptance of bait depends on the type of food items that rats are feeding on. The faster the food is recognised by the rats, the quicker it can be used as a bait to control them effectively.
- Rats generally move along the same pathway forming noticeable runways or leaving smear marks or faecal droppings along the route. This will help in identifying the areas frequently visited by the rodents and the routes taken. This has an implication on the placement of baits accordingly. Rats may take several routes for foraging, so to maximise their control, adequate bait points along all these routes should be identified and should not be limited to placing baits just adjacent to the burrows.
- Rats communicate with each other using pheromones for a number of things like fear signalling, social organisation, reproduction etc. If palatable food is found by rats, the same is communicated to others by scent markings. This again highlights the importance of bait selection and the location to attract rodents for effective rat control in Singapore
- Rats are most commonly ground based and are found in burrows and at the same time they can also enter the premises via roofs or even tree branches. Burrow baiting is an effective way of controlling rodents and it also reduces the risk of non-target access to the bait.
Any war can be won only after you have understood your enemy. The same holds true for rodent management and control. Many rodent control programs rely on exterior devices with rodenticide or traps, however, learning about the behavioural characteristics and placing the baits accordingly help to control this problem more effectively and quickly. Effectively controlling the rodent problem without having adverse effects is essential for ensuring the highest standards of health and preventing economic losses.
To control this problem, you can connect with us as we offering tech-advanced rodent control and management solutions at your disposal. Our team can conduct regular inspections to ensure that your home, office, commercial spaces and other areas are rodent-proof. You can dial our toll-free number to connect with us and schedule an inspection of your property.
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