The impregnated blocks are far too expensive for large scale rodent control.
I think they work out at about 40 cents a bait even when buying in 20 litre
drums. Likewise the spreading of poisoned grain around paddocks is too
expensive to be economical. Further after the harvest sheep and cattle are
usually put into the paddock to eat the stubble and the fallen grain. Unless
it has been recently changed, the poison is in a tin and mixed with rubbish
grain in a bucket and put where stock, especially sheep, the domestic pets
and poultry don't access it, such as in sheds. The problem is that the
poisoned mice usually head for the open to die. The was a suggestion that
some poisons make the rodents seek water. This is where the secondary
poisoning occurs with raptors feeding on dead mice. It also begs the
question of with so many live mice moving to attract raptors, would they
ignore these to seek dead rodents, and if so, to what extent?
The deliberate poisoning of birds by mixing certain stock drenches with
grain and feeding parrots and cockatoos around open grain dumps is a
different matter. It is not a wide spread practice but there are
occasionally whispers that it has happened.
Warren Thompson
Levenstrath
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