Rats vs rats vs baiting

Stephen Putman putman@pobox.upenn.edu
Fri, 03 Sep 2004 11:04:56 PDT
Not to mention the fact that avian predators eat "sick" or poisoned 
rodents and are killed by the rodenticide.  It takes much less to kill 
an hawk or owl than it does to kill one of our pet dogs.  We stopped 
using rodenticides many years ago for just that reason.

shp

Susan Hayek wrote:
>> The big problem in bulbs is field mice and voles. The other day I 
>> talked to a state pest control officer about them and was told that 
>> the only effective control was poisoned grain, and that this is hard 
>> to obtain. I knew about it but never used it because Koshka was an 
>> omnivorous forager, but now she has died at a ripe old age, and my 
>> present dogs don't forage as she did. I'm going to contact a pest 
>> control company to see what I can get against these rodents, so I can 
>> grow crocuses in the borders again, and not have to cover my most 
>> precious pots of crocuses with wire mesh caps in the bulb frames.
> 
> 
> **The problem with poison grains is that the critter will pack its 
> cheeks with it and travel on.
> Gophers can go 500' from the source of the grain.
> 
> I had an acquaintance lose his Borzoi a couple of months ago from eating 
> a gopher whose cheeks were packed with the poison. (The autopsy showed 
> the grains in the dog's stomach, and they checked with neighbors 
> surrounding their 2 acre parcel. Unfortunately their neighbor had been 
> baiting. Once the dog starts seizing their not much anyone can do.)
> The normal poisoned gopher probably wouldn't kill a large dog except if 
> he was storing the grain in the cheek pouches.
> Gracie was picking off a couple of gophers a day in the spring and we 
> were just hoping we weren't close to anyone using poison for control.
> 
> Having animals keeps us honest about using pesticides and poison.
> I had 3 Basenjis climb a 6 foot ladder to get at an unopened box of 
> Corry's Snail bait.
> They ate enough to kill them, so off to the vet they went.
> The vet said that most snail baits taste like licorice so they're very 
> appealing to dogs.
> The poison rodent grains are probably equally tasty.
> 
> 



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