Poultry and livestock farms offer the perfect living conditions for rodents. With plenty of food and shelter available, large infestations can quickly occur, and if left uncontrolled, infestations can cause huge economic losses, not to mention transmit diseases to animals and even humans, as well as damage feed, cables, insulation and more.

On farms, rodents get everything they need, thanks to unlimited entry options, abundant and nutritious food and water, plenty of shelter, and protection from the weather, so under they can easily reach high infestation levels if not kept in check.

Here, BASF’s Global Technical Manager for Rodenticides, Sharon Hughes, discusses the hidden costs of rodents facing farmers.

The Risks

Consumption

Although individually, rats and mice are relatively light in weight (from a few grams to 25 grams for a house mouse to up to approximately 450 grams for rats), they can consume a huge amount of animal feed every day, with a daily feed requirement equal to 5 - 10 % of their body weight for rats and 10-25 % for mice. For example, in a shed where pigs are raised, left unchecked, there could be several hundred rats. Let’s say there are two hundred rats with an average weight of250 grams each, and a daily feed requirement equal to 10 % of their body weight. The amount of feed consumed will be around 5 kg daily for a total of more than 1.8 tonne of feed consumed each year by our 200 rats. That can cost as much as £2,000!

Contamination

As well as consuming feed, rats also damage containers and feed packs to gain access to food sources, in turn contaminating much more than they consume. Often, the damaged feed can’t be used because it’s contaminated by rodent excrement and urine, spoiling significant units of product. According to some estimates, the feed contaminated by rats and mice can be up to ten times what they actually consume, meaning that the feed contamination loss can be upwards of £20,000 using the above example.

Disease

Rats can carry up to 45 diseases, posing a serious risk to the biosecurity of the whole food chain and significant financial losses. Salmonella is an ever-present risk within pigs and poultry. Rodents are known to spread Salmonella as well as carrying rabies, a disease that seriously affects pigs. Due to the close proximity of rodents with animals, transmission of disease can happen easily, resulting in loss of animals due to disease and stress and costly veterinary bills. Rats have been known to kill small animals, such as chicks on poultry farms, and they even chew on pig’s ears causing stress and further increasing the risk of disease transmission.

Damage

Rats gnaw on practically everything, causing damage to structures, machinery and equipment. Electric cables are a prime target and many farms are often forced to hire electricians to repair electrical systems and cables that have been chewed through, and in some cases, fires have been known to break out as a result of the gnawing damage. What’s more, sometimes roofs or insulation are damaged by rats and mice, as they create openings while seeking shelter and nesting material. This is often the case with chicken houses and nylon shelters. Farmers will then face costs to repair and even reconstruct the building.

The Solution

Controlling rodent infestations on farms is a long-term task. Livestock feed can make most baits unappealing to the rodent and hence make control of the infestation difficult. It is practically impossible for an open site like a farm to always be free of rats and mice. Therefore, it is crucial to use high-quality bait, which can compete with the abundance of available palatable food and control infestations quickly.

Anticoagulant rodenticides usually take 21 - 28 days to control an infestation, which means that these risks of damage, loss of feed, spread of disease and contamination continue to occur around a site for some weeks after the initial treatment. BASF has introduced a new non-anticoagulant rodenticide, Selontra®, to combat this, using the active ingredient cholecalciferol to stop rodents in their tracks.

The soft block bait causes death from hypercalcaemia; the accumulation of too much calcium in the blood. This results in rodents stopping feeding, on both the bait and any available food on the farm, 24 hours after consuming a lethal dose. the fact that they also stop moving means that Selontra® quickly putting a stop to the spreading of disease, contamination and damage to the site.

There is no known resistance to Selontra® and it also controls all anticoagulant resistant rats and mice. Meaning it will control “super rats” which are resistant to baits containing first-generation anticoagulants and second-generation anticoagulants difenacoum and bromadiolone as the active. It also balances performance and environmental impact, as cholecalciferol is neither persistent in the environment nor bio-accumulative, and Selontra® can withstand extreme climates.

BASF offers a Selontra® training programme, which allows farmers to become a certified Selontra® user, as well as a Real Results Virtual Farm hub where farmers can gain CPD points and complete the Responsible Use of Rodenticides exam.

To find out more and become a certified Selontra® user visit  [https://www.training.selontra.com/]