Rat Infestation
A Rat infestation is a real concern for property owners as rats can cause a serious amount of damage from gnawing. Rats are all around us, even if you live in the heart of a city like Brisbane.
These pests are experts at survival and seem to adapt to any environment and situation, they are a very social creature with one aim in mind, their population growth and survival.
Rats are also known to carry many different diseases and one of the most prominent ones was the plague, but it wasn’t the rats that actually had the plague it was the fleas that used the rats as a breeding ground.
Our Pets Are They Safe
People that have chickens in their garden for the pleasure of nice fresh eggs will know that a rat infestation can become a major problem if not dealt with correctly, if you do have chickens you will more than likely need to have the area regularly monitored and baited.
Also for people with other animals such as cats and dogs, they should be fed only once or twice a day, and leave their food out for about an hour, then what’s left over place back into the container until the next day, all pet food should be stored in a steel container, not plastic, as steel will make it a lot harder for rats to gain entry.
Rats can breed at an alarming rate, producing a new litter every 3-4 weeks and in a very good environment can produce even more.
They don’t need any great luxuries in life, all they need is a good supply of food and they will soon become a serious problem in the area.
Rats will live in very confined areas out of the reach of us humans, underground and only come out when the coast is clear to scavenge for food.
The Norway Rat
Rats Are Smart
They are also very intelligent creatures that have evolved to even out whit us in the pest control industry and this why it’s important to use a pest control company that has a sound understanding of the breeding and feeding habits of these little pests.
Baiting or trapping rats has become a bit of trial and error for many pest control companies, as mentioned earlier the rats are clever and are very wary of new objects introduced into their environment.
It’s known that rats may leave well alone a new bait that has been placed by a pest controller for some time. They may even send in a younger member of the family to check it out, and test it before the remainder of the colony will embark on it.
Once a member of the colony has tried some of the newly applied bait, the others will wait for some time to see what the effects may be.
Over time we have also come to understand that rats have evolved in such a way that they are outsmarting us in some respects. So we, in turn, have also evolved, by means of introducing new methods and baits to gain control of a rodent-infested area.
The way this has been done is to develop baits that have a different way of affecting the rats; there are now baits that will take longer to kill the rats giving more time for others to feed on the baits, there are also very effective liquid baits that can also be applied.
As mentioned earlier if a rat eats new baits that have been placed by a pest technician and it dies very quickly, this is a sign that the new object in the area is a thing to stay away from, and the rats will leave well alone.
Rodent faeces
Controlling Rats
We will never eliminate rats completely or gain complete control, but we can manage them effectively with regular baiting and even trapping in areas where rat populations have grown out of control.
In some studies, rats have been known to cannibalise their own including their newly born, this would be under extreme situations such as a shortage or no food.
The best way to help prevent or get rid of a rat infestation from your home or commercial premises is to ensure that rubbish is sealed in plastic bags and then placed into an outside bin.
The idea of placing food scraps into a plastic bag is to try and eliminate any odours that may come from the food, as we know the plastic bag won’t stop a rat from ripping it apart, but the main bin outside that it’s placed in will Stop them.
If we can limit the good conditions for them to breed in, then we can have a much better chance of keeping them well under control, or at least under control in the area we have control over, sometimes it not that easy.
Sometimes a problem area can come from a neighbour or as we have seen many times from a shop that isn’t doing the right things with their trash, in these situation control can be very difficult unless the neighbour can be better inform and help with the control process.
The very best method of control of rats is to become aware of your surroundings, and if a problem does arise get it dealt with straight away by a professional pest control company that can not only set up a baiting or trapping program, but one that can also give you as a customer the best advice about why they may be harbouring in or around your property.
Prevention is better than cure when dealing with rats because if you end up with a serious rat infestation it could take a long time to get rid of them and a lot of unnecessary expense.
