Apr 6, 2012 – Rats In Landscape
QUESTION:
I have been asked by the city to bait rodent burrows between a sidewalk and lawns. This would be for active burrows in a specific 10-15 foot section that is about 15-20 ft from houses. They would like us to eliminate the activity and then they would fill in the area with either new topsoil or extend the sidewalk. Please help me out with any advice you have to offer.
ANSWER:
My mind likes to work in the area of long term control, and what I am seeing here is that even if you manage to kill all of the rats (I assume this is rats?) currently burrowing in this area the city's plans for covering it over with new soil would not do anything to stop more rats from entering the area and creating new burrows. If these current rats found this area to their liking then others will too, assuming that this area is providing the food, water, and harborage resources they are looking for. In a sense, the only reason there are not more rats there at this time is because of limited resources, which in turn limit the numbers of rodents that can make a living in a specific area.
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I have been asked by the city to bait rodent burrows between a sidewalk and lawns. This would be for active burrows in a specific 10-15 foot section that is about 15-20 ft from houses. They would like us to eliminate the activity and then they would fill in the area with either new topsoil or extend the sidewalk. Please help me out with any advice you have to offer.
ANSWER:
My mind likes to work in the area of long term control, and what I am seeing here is that even if you manage to kill all of the rats (I assume this is rats?) currently burrowing in this area the city's plans for covering it over with new soil would not do anything to stop more rats from entering the area and creating new burrows. If these current rats found this area to their liking then others will too, assuming that this area is providing the food, water, and harborage resources they are looking for. In a sense, the only reason there are not more rats there at this time is because of limited resources, which in turn limit the numbers of rodents that can make a living in a specific area.
With this in mind, are any other steps being taken to reduce the rodent problem in the general area? Has an inspection been done to determine what food resources these rats are finding and perhaps reducing those resources? Has anyone taken that close look at surrounding areas to determine where these rats are coming from originally, and perhaps expanding the fight to these areas as well? It just would seem futile to spend the time and money and use of rodent bait to kill some rats in a very small location, only to have it repopulated rather quickly. And, of course, if that happened the city might look at you as having NOT done your job properly.
Given where the burrows are located you at least would be within the legal Label allowances to do this burrow baiting, but do carefully read the Label of the product you plan to use to be certain you use it accordingly. Any time you bait rodents outdoors, especially putting bait into burrows, you run the risk of bait ending up on the surface. Rats might just push it out. People may pose the question of secondary poisoning, particularly if dead or dying rodents are discovered exposed outside the burrows, and you would need to be able to answer these questions to their satisfaction.
I don't see anything wrong with the need to eliminate rats burrowing this close to homes and human activity, but hopefully you can expand the program so that any contributing conditions are corrected and the source of these rodents is addressed further out from this small area.
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