Rat Bait and why rat bait isn’t the solution
Rat bait is designed to kill rats. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to just prevent the rats entering in the first place? That’s why you need Pestology!
Rat bait started life as something tasty mixed with something deadly – in essence man grew tired of rats consuming his stored produce so once he worked out what they preferred to nibble on, he added something toxic to a small amount of this and then removed the rest so the rats only had the poisoned rat bait to feed on.
That’s the basic of rat bait and the war between man and rat has been raging in the pantry in this manner for thousands of years.
But, rat bait is not a strategy that’s as simple as it initially sounds.
Here are a few explanations as to why rat bait probably won’t work:
Rat bait and rats preference for certain foods
Rats were already feeding from certain products man was storing in his pantry.
This is usually the case. Rats will typically have very specific preferences for certain foods and will ignore everything else.
Therefore, if you are to get the rats to eat rat bait, the rat bait must be the same or similar as their preference.
Rat bait and why ‘neophobia’ means the rats won’t take the bait
Man removed the non-toxic product when he introduced the toxic product into the bait
Rats are very wary of anything new that’s introduced into their environment, even if it’s something the rats will usually be very keen on.
It’s a survival strategy the rats have developed caused Neophobia. If the rats have been feeding on non-toxic product for a while then there is no neophobia. But if you put rat bait in front of the rats they will avoid the rat bait completely.
Rat bait and the rats resistance to the toxins in rat bait
Man has been poisoning rats with rat bait for thousands of years and the short lifespans and rapid reproduction rates of rats mean they have natural selection on overdrive and quickly build resistance to the rat bait.
Some rats will simply eat the rat bait and carry on just like it was any other food source.
Carrying on with the initial analogy, what man ultimately worked out was that if he stopped rats accessing his stored product altogether then there was no need to put down rat bait as the rats weren’t there in the first place.
Rat bait isn’t the solution – we stop the rats entering in the first place
At Pestology this is the same philosophy we employ to fix rat problems today for good – we doesn’t use rat baits in any part of the rat control process.
We identify how and why the rats are there in the first place and then we fix it.
