“We think like a rodent and understand what a rodent likes. We’ve researched different flavours, different textures; wheat bait, gel bait, block bait, with different shapes to encourage gnawing. Different bait boxes to provide the ideal feeding environment. It’s all about out-thinking rodents, and our competitors.”

Understanding Rat Behaviour

rat The key aspects of rat behaviour that need to be taken into account in planning and managing the most effective control programmes are:

Nocturnal Feeding

Unless acutely over-crowded or disturbed, rats feed almost exclusively at night, remaining well concealed in family burrows during the day

This means only a minority of the population is ever seen, making it easy to under-estimate the scale of infestations and the amount of rodenticide and number of baiting points necessary for complete control.

Neophobia

As a survival strategy, rats are extremely wary of unfamiliar objects as well as human and animal activity, and dwelling in the open.

This means they can be very cautious of new bait containers and foods, avoiding them initially and only consuming small amounts until confident of their safety.

Foraging Instinct

With their inherent caution, rats seem to favour foods made up of a variety of different looks, textures, tastes and smells. Their acute sense of smell and taste can make them especially wary of foods with strong odours.

This can limit the appeal and consumption of baits of a uniform consistency, especially if they have a single strong odour and other food sources are readily available.

Regular Habits

Rats are creatures of habit, feeding at two or three familiar places and using established, well-covered routes to move from their burrows (usually in rough ground) to their feeding points in and around buildings.

This means they leave obvious signs of activity along relatively easy to identify routes which provide ideal baiting points.

Annual Activity

Rats have well-established annual cycles of activity closely linked to their particular environments. They move into buildings for food and warmth in the winter; exploit specific changes in activity, food supply and shelter throughout the year; and continually migrate to re-occupy territories left vacant by previous control programmes.

As well as making them highly successful opportunists requiring regular control, this provides a number of ideal seasonal opportunities for the most effective use of rodenticide baits.

	House Mice	Brown Rats
Living Area	Almost exclusively in indoor nests	In outdoor burrows except on intensive livestock units
Social Groups	Families of 4-9. Invariably dominated by a single male.	Colonies of 8-15. Very territorial when food is in short supply.
Breeding	Can produce up eight young/female every 21 days.	Can produce 6-8 young/female every 22-24 days.
Feeding	Feeds erratically at around 20 points/night. Average intake 2.5g/day. Can utilise moisturise in feed.	Habitually feeds at 2/3 familiar points/night. Average intake 25-30g/day. Requires free water.
Nature	Highly inquisitive. Investigates rather than avoids new objects and foods.	Neophobic. Very wary of new objects and foods. Prefers familiar stable environments.
Activity	Active mostly at night. Very good climbers. May spend most of life off the floor.	Active mostly at night. Good climbers. Live most of life on the ground.
Territory	Move widely within buildings. Rarely travel far between them.	Typically roam over 100-300m. Can travel up to 3.5km.

Better Planned Control >><< Best Rodenticide Practice