This document discusses rodents as serious pests that damage crops and storage. It identifies the common rodent species as house rats, house mice, brown rats, and various bandicoot rats. Rodents reproduce rapidly, are nocturnal, and cause extensive damage. The document outlines biological characteristics of rats and mice and their habits. It provides methods for managing rodents in households and fields, including using acute or slow-acting poisons in baits, traps, cutting back vegetation, and fumigation of burrows. Proper sanitation and rodent-proofing of homes and storage areas is also recommended for household rodent control.

1. Rodents and their control

2. Rodents
Rodents are the serious pest of both field
and storage condition. They belong to phylum
vertebrates. The common rodents found to be
damaging are:
a. House rat (Rattus rattus)
b. House mouse (Mus musculus)
c. Brown rat (Rattus norvegicus)
d. Lesser Bandicott rat/ Field rat (Bandicota
bengalensis)
e. Large Bandicot rat (Bandicota indica)
f. Field mouse (Mus booduga)
They damage growing crops and post-harvest
products.

4. Rodents
Biological characteristics of rat and mice
● Poor eyesight.
● Nocturnal in habit.
● Teeth grow at the rate of 0.4 mm per day.
● Damage caused is almost 5 times of their daily food
requirement.
● Move on the same path.
● One mature pair can give birth to 2000 offspring in a year.
● Very good jumper and climber.
● Like quite dark and dirty places.
● Life span is 2-3 years.

5. Biological characteristics of rat and mice
● Reproduce rapidly.
● Reproductively mature at 10-11 weeks of age.
● Chew and gnaw almost anything.
● Come in estrous immediately after birth of delivering of their
litter.
● Causes great losses of field storage.
● Good swimmer and don’t afraid with water.
● Gestation period is only 3 weeks.
● Give birth 4-13 young at once.
Rodents

6. Biological characteristics of rat and mice
● House rat and house mice go to the field during crop harvest
time.
● Field rats and field mice live inside the burrow system in the
field.
Rodents

7. Rodents are not of one-man. One family
problem, they are community problem.
Management of household rodents
● They don’t like clean house so we should
clean our house, storage and field.
● Use of rat proof door.
● Tree that grow near the house should be
cut back so rat can’t jump from the
branches to the house.
In the household condition, rat can be
controlled by chemical and mechanical
means:
Methods of management of Rodents

8. Chemical method
Fast acting poison
● Acute poison (Zinc phosphide)
● Pre-baiting with non-poisonous bait by
mixing 45% ground rice, 45% ground wheat,
5% roasted groundnut and 5% mustard oil.
● Keep 20 gram of mixture where frequent
movement of rats and mice takes place in
the house at evening.
● It is done for 2 days.
● Prepare the poison bait by mixing 98% non –
poisonous food and 2% acute poison (Zinc
phosphide)
● Next morning collect the rat and mice and
burry them deep underground.
Methods of management of Rodents

9. Chemical method
Slow acting poison
● Example: Bromadiolone (0.005% Roban)
● Requires feeding by rats several days before
they die.
● They continue feeding, it until they die.
Methods of management of Rodents

10. Mechanical method
Wire trap
● Potato or sweet potato slices are hang as
feeding bait inside the traps.
● These baits are fixed in the evening where
frequently movement of rats occurs in the
house.
● Snap trap and glue traps can also be fixed
as of wire traps.
Methods of management of Rodents

11. Management of field rodents
Chemical control
● Prepare and use non-poisonous and
poisonous bait.
● Find live burrows of rat and mice.
● Non-poisonous baiting on live burrows for
2-3 days.
● Poisonous baiting on live burrows for 2-3
days.
● Chronic poison, bromodiolane (0.005%
Roban). The Roban poison baits should be
kept on the running path of rats and mice.
● Fumigation of live rodent burrows by
aluminium phosphide.
● Place poisonous bait during night and then
take out those during the day for safety
purpose.
Methods of management of Rodents

12. Thank You..