[Pil-pc-oceania] Permaculture and Rodents

[Susan Girard]

Hi all ,
As a Permie Consultant with Pest Control license; no that is not an 
oxymoron...I have been reading the letters on this subject with interest. 
Mouse plagues in particular, are historically common after fire, and in the 
Upper Blue Mountains that seems to be the case at the moment so you have my 
empathy.

Integrated Pest Management should be multi pronged
Physical Control - Traps: need to be placed in well worn run ways and in the 
direction from which the come from en-route. Mice are inquisitive but rats 
are more cautious
                               Live traps (miniature possum/fox traps) allow 
you to identify what you have caught and allow you to sort the natives from 
the ferals. But then you need to find a humane way of dispose of the pest 
rodent.                                  Snap traps can be problematic if 
you've got a number of rodents they soon figure out that the seeming free 
food is not all it's cracked up to be, and the  parents are willing to 
sacrifice their children before they try for themselves. So it is often a 
good idea to leave a bait with the trap unset for a few days.
                                 Electrical traps - Many of the large food 
factories use a covered in trap that applies an electrical jolt to are 
visitor,  okay you won't have to euthanasia the pest but you may have caught 
an antechinus
                                Large sticky boards are almost impossible to 
buy at the moment and work on the 'molasses' principle but will catch 
lizards and other small creatures as will the bucket type 'pit-fall trap' if 
you fill it with water. Biological surveys use a similar trap without the 
water and with a good ID chart at hand you again sort the natives from the 
ferals.

Cultural control/altering the environment- Exclude - good in theory too big 
a job for fruit trees
                                Deter:  I have personally used down facing 
metal funnel shapes around  down pipes to prevent climbing with success, and 
I have no doubt it wound prevent rodents going up tree trunks to forage

Biological control - No I wouldn't add a cat to the equation either .It 
would be like introducing the Cane toad into Queensland.

Chemical control - If you are desperate enough to use chemicals it is 
obviously better to use 'multi dose baits' that will not accumulate or 
biomagnify  in the food chains. As  Robyn suggests Racumin is one, there are 
others They are not the bait usually found in the commercial supermarkets, 
because they do take longer than 'single dose baits' such as Tomcat (R), as 
the names imply. Large dogs who have eaten single dose baits  probably won't 
die but effectiveness of a poison is estimated as an LD50 50 rating (Lethal 
dose to 50% of a small mammal population) and relates to the amount eaten to 
the size of then animal.
Hope  some of that might be of use. Good luck.
Sue Girard
.