Author Topic: Vermin - Rats . (Read 2881 times)

4rivers · « **on:** July 09, 2012, 11:57:13 am »

Hi , all .

I kept large whites , in the Azores , in the late 80's , and one of the problems there, is vermin , specifically rats . Not because of bad practise on my part , but because the place (island) had a large population of them . The local method of killing them, then and now , was to put the type of poisen , which is a (pink) coated barley, which comes in small cellophane bags, and lay said poisen around , this was practise done by both farmers and the council . The draw back is that it has the potential to kill other things , that have fur or hair , as well . Either through direct ingestion , or as pigs will eat anything, through ingestion of the corpse of the deceased rat .As much, as you may not like the idea .
Leptospirosis, accounted for several deaths per year among the farming fraternity ( human pop.56,000)
I never had any real problems - because my pigs were in styes.

But how do you , as keepers of free ranging pigs , manage the problem of vermin . I have looked through this site , and don't see anywhere that it is mentioned . But note , that it must be a problem you all have , to a certain degree .

redborneschoolfarm · « **Reply #1 on:** July 09, 2012, 02:08:43 pm »

Good husbandry. Store feed in steel containers, clean up spillage, don't over feed, move arcs and stock regularly but also except that where animal feed is stored there will be vermin. So shoot, hunt and deter its just one of those things that have to be done. Ferrets are used not only to kill and flush rats but we also keep some particularly smelly hobs (Male Ferrets) near our animal feed and the rats will avoid this area at all costs. Mice on the other hand are not bothered by them. French Snail Farmers a big fans of rats as they won't eat teh snails but will eat the rats which do eat the snails.

omnipeasant · « **Reply #2 on:** July 09, 2012, 07:35:52 pm »

Never see a rat here. Our cat's are brilliant.

Fowgill Farm · « **Reply #3 on:** July 10, 2012, 10:51:14 am »

Dog caught a huge rat other day (have told him off as he can get viles disease from them?), they live in our compost heap, the local rat man comes and places bait around the farm and i also buy a proprietary brand from the local ag merchant which we throw under all the pig houses out of reach of the pigs. Our rat problem has improved greatly since we stopped storing straw outside under tarps (got a building for it now) and pigs get fed in trugs not on ground.
Mandy

Bionic · « **Reply #4 on:** July 10, 2012, 10:57:47 am »

Never seen a rat here but I expect its just a matter of time, or better glasses

Sally

robert waddell · « **Reply #5 on:** July 11, 2012, 11:24:08 pm »

if you see them during the day then you have a serious problem there are rats all over the place even pigs feed on concrete leave enough for a rat to exist on

Gary · « **Reply #6 on:** July 15, 2012, 11:04:40 am »

As long as you keep the bait down and stick to it then you can keep them at bay, i dont think you can ever totally eradicate them, when i first started i put some bait down when i first saw one then when i found some dead ones i thought good job well done so stopped baiting....................big mistake you have to keep baiting.