Question of the Week: What uncontrollable factors can impact your operation?
This week’s episode is all about eliminating mice and rats to save you money in the long run. These rodents are factors that you can somewhat control but not entirely.
Now, let’s take this a step deeper. What are all the uncontrollable circumstances on your cattle operation? The weather is the main one that comes to my mind, but there can also be injury or illness. The list will vary for everyone.
Take a moment to list out these uncontrollable events and think about what you would do if they happened. Do you have a drought plan? Do you have a plan if you flood? Do you have a plan if someone gets injured? You can’t control these events from happening, but you can prepare and at the very minimum have a mental plan for how to act if they do happen.
How to Keep Rodents Out of Your Feed
I don’t know about you, but I do NOT appreciate mice anywhere. Sure, they have their place in the ecosystem. But their place is not near me, in my feed or in my vehicles. There are many methods of controlling mice and rats out there but finding effective non-toxic methods that don’t require regular monitoring can be more challenging. So, this week’s podcast episode focuses on one non-toxic method of controlling mice and rats on your farm/ranch and in the house. Jeff Wilcox from Gallagher Animal Management and Adam Cording from Good Nature join the show to discuss this method along with the economic and health impacts that come from not controlling mouse and rat populations.
Economic & Health Impacts of Varmint Control
Rodents are small animals that can cause significant damage. They can spoil feed with their feces and urine droppings as well as chew on wires in your vehicles and other equipment. These are all things that are already high input costs for cattle producers let alone having a rodent ruin or damage them after the fact! Rodents can also carry diseases or fleas and ticks which carry diseases and cause problems of their own. The big picture is that these small creatures can cause a lot of damage if populations are not controlled.
One Method for Rodent Control
There is always more than one way to get something done. Many people are accustomed to regular mouse traps, poison or good old barn cats to control rodent populations. However, let’s focus on a newer method that is non-toxic and doesn’t require constant monitoring. Good Nature mouse traps are a non-toxic form of killing rodents that happens instantly to prevent them from repopulating before dying. The traps also automatically reset to save you time and energy. The trap can be mounted or set on a stand to allow you to place it in the high-traffic areas on your ranch. It consists of a paste to lure the pests in and is then powered by CO2 to strike the pest when they activate the trigger. The pest then drops from the trap, the counter tracks the dead mouse for you to see how many it gets and then the trap is opened for another pest to enter as they smell the lure.
Next Steps
If you are tired of mice, rats and other pests spoiling your feed or chewing on wires; ask yourself these questions to determine what type of system you need to control their populations.
1. Where are the rodents getting into?
2. Do I have pets that I need to keep safe from poison?
3. Do I have the capacity to constantly monitor the traps or do I need something that resets itself?
Best of luck if you are working through this challenge and Merry Christmas!
