Okay so lets first deal with one thing, although the daily mail and other such newspapers love to give the impression of Rats the size of labradors are roaming the streets, terrorising neighbourhoods and trying to steal your children, the reality of it is really quite different.
Rats vary in size, shape and colour, much like people do and just like people that depends mainly on a what their diet consists of and availability of food.
Unfortunately we have made it all to easy for Rats (and people) to have easy access to food from all sorts of different sources. I live in Colchester and during all of the first lockdowns due to Covid-19 our local council stopped bin collections, then on top of that the lovely powers that be at the council decided to make it almost impossible to use the local tip with reduced number of vehicles allowed on site etc so there were bin bags all over the streets, in peoples gardens and being fly tipped in many places.
So what problems did this cause? Well the local Rat population increased massively. Not immediately, as all of these things take time, but in the following 4/5 months our rodent call outs went absolutely bonkers!
With an excess of food came and excess of Rats and an increased size in my opinion due to the type of food being discarded, remember that takeaways were the only places allowed to open so imagine the amount of discarded Chinese takeaway and Pizza which ended up in black bags within easy access to the rats. I felt the effect myself, I’ve only just managed to get rid of my own Covid cushion!
Back to Super Rats, so the term “Super Rats” was first used to describe rodenticide resistant Rats in a population, NOT their cape wearing counterparts running spreading covid and baking banana bread.
Super Rats are a nickname given to an ever increasing population of rats which will eat a rat poison used to normally control them and it will not kill them. A lot of the time the rodents will still become unwell from the baits but will then recover. This brings more problems in itself aside from resistance.
I explain it as if you or I went to a dodgy Chinese/ Indian/ Turkish takeaway (right now you can imagine the kinda place I’m talking about and probably have a picture in your head of the front door). Anyways, if you eat a dodgy takeaway (the point is not your normal food) and you become ill from it, you won’t eat there again! The same for the rats, if they get a sub-lethal dose, become unwell and recover, they then often don’t return to the bait station or eat that product/ food stuff again. This is known as bait shyness.
I keep going off a tangent but there is a lot to say, so bear with me, lets go back to resistance.
If “mummy” rat for instance is now resistant to the rodenticides, her offspring will have developed the same resistance and their offspring and so on. So as we know what prolific breeders Roland and his missus are, in almost know time at all you have whole areas with rodenticide resistant “Super Rats”.
So what is the answer? I’m not all doom and gloom, there are answers but not all of them popular opinions.
Firstly if I was in charge of the world (praise whatever god you believe in I’m not) I would ban all rodenticides to non qualified users, the public mainly.
Over the years I have been called into Rodent jobs to correct a problem which the homeowner has “given it a go” first. I have on multiple occasions seen a thin line of Rat bait (whole grain) thinking that this is enough to control the problem. You know what this does? Makes the Rats bait shy and resistant due to giving them that lovely sub-lethal dose we just spoke about.
Lets call a spade a spade, its poison. You can’t buy over certain amounts of paracetamol in this country as the government has restricted the volume it can be purchased in BUT you can wonder aimlessly into your local B&Q and walk out with Rat poison. Where is the sense in that?
No qualifications, no experience needed and maybe 5 sentences on the back of the packet with basic instructions. Absolutely crazy. So that’s where I would start.
The second would be longer and more in depth training for Farmers and Ground keepers. I know these industries need access to these products to protect their livelihood and I’m in support of that wholeheartedly. However a one day course is all that required to allow these industries access to such products and there is little or no monitoring or follow up to check on safe use or following best practice. The sexy headline which sells papers aside from Super Rats is trace rodenticides in Barn Owls and carrion feeders. In your opinion, do you think that problem is made worse by your local Pest Controller treating Mrs Mavis’s mice in her loft, the DIYer sorting the rats in their shed or the farmer with 30/40 bait stations in the open on a 20 acre site?
Food for thought.
Anyways, lets get back to the Super Rats, turns out they do exist but not in the manner the media will have you believe so you can sleep tight tonight without the fear they’ll be downstairs trying to jimmy the locks on your front door or steal your car while your in bed.
As always if you’d like to contact us, please do but for this week the ramblings of a rat man are finally over.
DJ
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