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Show Agriculture Dept. Advises Rodent Control To Save Grain Harvests With grain storage bins bulging, bulg-ing, rodent control is more important im-portant than ever before. Rats are the chief culprits, according jto the U. S. Department of Ag-! Ag-! riculture. Numbering 60 million mil-lion on farms, they are destroying destroy-ing 200 million bushels of grain each year. To reduce this loss, ' rodent specialists have outlined three rat control measures. Rat-proofing all farm structures struc-tures is the first measure. It thwarts rats' efforts to find food and shelter. And when rats are hungry and without living quarters, quar-ters, they become desperate and very vulnerable to direct eradication. erad-ication. 1 i i Suggested rat-proofing materials mater-ials include cement, hardware cloth and sheet metal. These materials are recommended for all new construction and for repairing re-pairing old structures. When using us-ing them, all cracks Vi-inch or larger in buildings should be given special attention. Also included under rat-proofing is protecting obvious food for rats chicken feed and household garbage. Grain kept near brooders may be safeguarded safeguard-ed by storing it in galvanized steel ash or garbage cans. These cans have all-metal bodies and close-fitting covers to keep rats out. For these reasons, galvanized galvan-ized steel ash and garbage cans are suggested for refuse storage, too. . 1 i i Poisons are used for the second sec-ond rat control measure. They are most effective for mass killing. kill-ing. Red squill and Antu are two common rat poisons. Red squill is less toxic than Antu, but both are poisons and should be used only according to instructions in-structions printed on their packages. pack-ages. Mix either of these poisons with fresh meat, vegetables or pastry for a good rat bait. Separate Sep-arate the mixture into small amounts, rolling these into small balls of about marble size. The small balls of poisoned bait may then be placed in areas acces-ssible acces-ssible to rats but not to farm poultry and pets. The third rat control measure consists of using plenty of traps. Spring type traps are recommended recom-mended by most authorities. To increase the effectiveness of such traps, enlarge their triggers trig-gers by wedging a piece of cardboard, card-board, slightly smaller than the traps' bases into the metal edges of the triggers. Then wherever rats step, the triggers will snap shut. |
