IPB Researchers Found out the Most Effective Rats Baits for Trapping House Rats
Rats are incredibly hardy animals who have never shown any problem adjusting to change. A rat or mouse in your home can carry a lot of risks. Rodents can spread disease (See One Mouse in Your Home Can Become Hundreds In a Year), and both rats and mice can cause a great deal of damage to the structure of your home as well as eating and contaminating your – and your pet’s – food. Every year, rats and other rodent species consume about ten percent of the food supply of the entire world. Aside from eating through your food supply, these pesky critters also contaminate the world’s food source with their urine and fecal waste. Fortunately, pest control has been invented, allowing people to ward off some of the damage rats and its relatives bring. In addition, mice cause contamination of foodstuffs, and the carrying of several pathogens from mice to humans or other pets to home habitats. As a dangerous disease carriers, these animals can transmit diseases such as plague and leptospirosis. There is only one solution to the rat problem in food facilities: effective pest management. Without pest control, the world would be losing half of its food reserves to these four-legged pillagers year in and year out.
To find out the best method or the most effective rodent control, students of the Department of Plant Protection, of Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), Fatimah Sofni Siregar, supervised by Dr. Ir. Swastiko Priyambodo, conducted a research on "The Success of Trapping the House Rats with Three Types of Baits in Dramaga, Bogor". The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of different types of traps bait for house rats.
The black rat (Rattus rattus), also known as the ship rat, roof rat, house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the genus Rattus (rats) in the subfamily Murinae. Black rats adapt to a wide range of habitats. In urban areas they are found around warehouses, residential buildings, and other human settlements. They are also found in agricultural areas, such as in barns and crop fields. In urban areas they prefer to live in dry upper levels of buildings, so they are commonly found in wall cavities and false ceilings. In the wild, black rats live in cliffs, rocks, the ground, and trees. There are various species of Rodents but the most often encountered species, which live closely with the human community, are R. rattus diardii, R. norvegicus, and Mus musculus.
Rats may experience trap shyness, that is, rats are easily captured early in the arrest, but it is difficult to catch on to the next arrest. The success of the capture depends on where the trap is located, the type of trap, and the trap baits used. Variations of laying traps and using different types of baits will increase the success of trapping. In addition, the quality and quantity of baits available in the field affects the results of trapping.
Mechanical control using traps is the most appropriate technique for home and surrounding habitats as it avoids the nature of resistance, reduces environmental pollution, saves control costs, and is the most effective, safe and economical way. The success of mouse trap depends on the type of trap baits used. This study uses three types of bait that are commonly found in house rat habitats such as salted fish, roasted coconut, and sweet potato.
Trap baits are the bait used to attract mice into traps. The use of traps containing baits has a higher percentage of fishing success than non-feed traps. Successful trapping in house rats with coconut bait was 12 percent, ikan teri (Engraulidae) was 9.14 percent, and without baits was 0.29 percent. In the previous study, they revealed that successful trapping with salted fish bait was 21.6 percent, while with a poison baits was 14 percent.
The study was conducted in Dramaga District, Bogor Regency, on September 2016 to January 2017. The trapping was implemented in ten houses with ten replications in time. The success of trapping with salted fish was 10.5 percent, with burned coconut was 10.5 percent, and with sweet potato was 8.5 percent. The trapped mice were 52 mice (R. rattus diardii), and 7 rats (R. norvegicus). Female mice and large rats were more trapped than male rats and small rats. The results of this study will provide information for the communities at large on the most effective type of baits used for house rats. (Wied)
