Part 3

This plan is adapted to small dwellings throughout the South, and to small summer homes, temporary structures, and small farm buildings everywhere. Wherever rats might obtain a foothold on the top of the post they may be prevented from gnawing the adjacent wood by tacking metal plates or pieces of wire netting to floor or sill.

KEEPING FOOD FROM RATS AND MICE.

The effect of an abundance of food on the breeding of rodents should be kept in mind. Well-fed rats mature quickly, breed often, and have large litters. Poorly fed rats, on the contrary, reproduce less frequently and have smaller litters. In addition, scarcity of food makes measures for destroying the animals far more effective.

=Merchandise in stores.=--In all parts of the country there is a serious economic drain in the destruction by rats and mice of merchandise held for sale by dealers. Not only foodstuffs and forage, but textiles, clothing, and leather goods are often ruined. This loss is due mainly to the faulty buildings in which the stores are kept. Often it would be a measure of economy to tear down the old structures and replace them by new ones. However, even the old buildings may often be repaired so as to make them practically rat-proof; and foodstuffs, as flour, seeds, and meats, may always be protected in wire cages at slight expense. The public should be protected from insanitary stores by a system of rigid inspection.

=Household supplies.=--Similar care should be exercised in the home to protect household supplies from mice and rats. Little progress in ridding the premises of these animals can be made so long as they have access to supplies of food. Cellars, kitchens, and pantries often furnish subsistence not only to rats that inhabit the dwelling, but to many that come from outside. Food supplies may always be kept from rats and mice if placed in inexpensive rat-proof containers covered with wire netting. Sometimes all that is needed to prevent serious waste is the application of concrete to holes in the basement wall or the slight repair of a defective part of the building.

=Produce in transit.=--Much loss of fruits, vegetables, and other produce occurs in transit by rail and on ships. Most of the damage is done at wharves and in railway stations, but there is also considerable in ships' holds, especially to perishable produce brought from warm latitudes. Much of this may be prevented by the use of rat-proof cages at the docks, by the careful fumigation of seagoing vessels at the end of each voyage, and by the frequent fumigation of vessels in coastwise trade; but still more by replacing old and decrepit wharves and station platforms with modern ones built of concrete.

Where cargoes are being loaded or unloaded at wharves or depots, food liable to attack by rats may be temporarily safeguarded by being placed in rat-proof cages, or pounds, constructed of wire netting. Wooden boxes containing reserve food held in depots for a considerable time or intended for shipment by sea may be made rat-proof by light coverings of metal along the angles. This plan has long been in use to protect naval stores on ships and in warehouses. It is based on the fact that rats do not gnaw the plane surfaces of hard materials, but attack doors, furniture, and boxes at the angles only.

=Packing houses.=--Packing houses and abattoirs are often sources from which rats secure subsistence, especially where meats are prepared for market in old buildings. In old-style cooling rooms with double walls of wood and sawdust insulation, always a source of annoyance because of rat infestation, the utmost vigilance is required to prevent serious loss of meat products. On the other hand, packing houses with modern construction and sanitary devices have no trouble from rats or mice.

=Garbage and waste.=--Since much of the food of rats consists of garbage and other waste materials, it is not enough to bar the animals from markets, granaries, warehouses, and private food stores. Garbage and offal of all kinds must be so disposed of that rats can not obtain them.

In cities and towns an efficient system of garbage collection and disposal should be established by ordinances. Waste from markets, hotels, cafes and households should be collected in covered metal receptacles and frequently emptied. Garbage should never be dumped in or near towns, but should be utilized or promptly destroyed by fire.

Rats find abundant food in country slaughterhouses; reform in the management of these is badly needed. Such places are centers of rat propagation. It is a common practice to leave offal of slaughtered animals to be eaten by rats and swine, and this is the chief means of perpetuating trichinae in pork. The law should require that offal be promptly cremated or otherwise disposed of. Country slaughterhouses should be as cleanly and as constantly inspected as abattoirs.

Another important source of rat food is found in remnants of lunches left by employees in factories, stores, and public buildings. This food, which alone is sufficient to attract and sustain a small army of rats, is commonly left in waste baskets or other open receptacles. Strictly enforced rules requiring all remnants of food to be deposited in covered metal vessels would make trapping far more effective.

Military training camps, unless subjected to rigid discipline in the matter of disposal of garbage and waste, soon become centers of rat infestation. Waste from camps, deposited in covered metal cans and collected daily, should be removed far from the camp itself and either burned or utilized in approved modern ways.

DESTROYING RATS AND MICE.

The Biological Survey has made numerous laboratory and field experiments with various agencies for destroying rats and mice. The results form the chief basis for the following recommendations:

TRAPS.

Owing to their cunning, it is not always easy to clear rats from premises by trapping; if food is abundant, it is impossible. A few adults refuse to enter the most innocent-looking trap. And yet trapping, if persistently followed, is one of the most effective ways of destroying the animals.

=Guillotine trap.=--For general use the improved modern traps with a wire fall released by a baited trigger and driven by a coiled spring have marked advantages over the old forms, and many of them may be used at the same time. These traps, sometimes called "guillotine" traps, are of many designs, but the more simply constructed are preferable. Probably those made entirely of metal are the best, as they are more durable. Traps with tin or sheet-metal bases are not recommended.

Guillotine traps of the type shown in figure 5 should be baited with small pieces of Vienna sausage (Wienerwurst) or fried bacon. A small section of an ear of corn is an excellent bait if other grain is not present. The trigger wire should be bent inward to bring the bait into proper position for the fall to strike the rat in the neck, as shown in figure 6.

Other excellent baits for rats and mice are oatmeal, toasted cheese, toasted bread (buttered), fish, fish offal, fresh liver, raw meat, pine nuts, apples, carrots, and corn, and sunflower, squash, or pumpkin seeds. Broken fresh eggs are good bait at all seasons, and ripe tomatoes, green cucumbers, and other fresh vegetables are very tempting to the animals in winter. When seed, grain, or meal is used with a guillotine trap, it is put on the trigger plate, or the trigger wire may be bent outward and the bait placed directly under it.

Oatmeal (rolled oats) is recommended as a bait for guillotine traps made with wooden base and trigger plate (fig. 7). These traps are especially convenient to use on ledges or other narrow rat runs or at the openings of rat burrows. They are often used without bait.

A common mistake in trapping for rats and mice is to use only one or two traps when dozens are needed. For a large establishment hundreds of traps may be used to advantage, and a dozen is none too many for an ordinary barn or dwelling infested with rats. House mice are less suspicious than rats and are much more easily trapped. Small guillotine traps baited with oatmeal will soon rid an ordinary dwelling of the smaller pests.

=Cage trap.=--When rats are abundant, the large French wire cage traps may be used to advantage. They should be made of stiff wire, well reinforced. Many of those sold in stores are useless, because a full-grown rat can bend the light wires apart and so escape.

Cage traps may be baited and left open for several nights until the rats are accustomed to enter them to obtain food. They should then be closed and freshly baited, when a larger catch may be expected, especially of young rats (fig. 8). As many as 25, and even more, partly grown rats have been taken at a time in one of these traps. It is better to cover the trap than to leave it exposed. A short board should be laid on the trap and an old cloth or bag or a bunch of hay or straw thrown carelessly over the top. Often the trap may be placed with the entrance opposite a rat hole and fitting it so closely that rats can not pass through without entering the trap. If a single rat is caught it may be left in the trap as a decoy to others.

Notwithstanding the fact that sometimes a large number of rats may be taken at a time in cage traps, a few good guillotine traps intelligently used will prove more effective in the long run.

=Figure-4 trigger trap.=--The old-fashioned box trap set with a figure-4 trigger is sometimes useful to secure a wise old rat that refuses to be enticed into a modern trap. Better still is a simple deadfall--a flat stone or a heavy plank--supported by a figure-4 trigger. An old rat will go under such a contrivance to feed without fear.

=Steel trap.=--The ordinary steel trap (No. 0 or 1) may sometimes be satisfactorily employed to capture a rat. The animal is usually caught by the foot, and its squealing has a tendency to frighten other rats. The trap may be set in a shallow pan or box and covered with bran or oats, care being taken to have the space under the trigger pan free of grain. This may be done by placing a very little cotton under the trigger and setting as lightly as possible. In a narrow run or at the mouth of a burrow a steel trap unbaited and covered with very light cloth or tissue paper is often effective.

The best bait usually is food of a kind that the rats and mice do not get in the vicinity. In a meat market, vegetables or grain should be used; in a feed store, meat. As far as possible food other than the bait should be inaccessible while trapping is in progress. The bait should be kept fresh and attractive, and the kind changed when necessary. Baits and traps should be handled as little as possible.