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Rodent Bait Stations: A Look Back - And Ahead
1 May, 2007 By: Dale E. Kaukeinen Pest Management ProfessionalRodent Reports
If you've felt like looking over your shoulder lately, you're probably justified. Our industry gets a lot of attention. Fortunately, there's not much visual evidence that you've just serviced an account for general pests or termites, unless your presence or posting gives it away. But rodent management is a different matter.
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The most-obvious indications that accounts have regular rodent service are all the bait stations sitting around their facilities' outside perimeters and fence lines.
More than 60 percent of commercial and residential accounts receive rodenticides, according to a recent survey. Those rodenticides had better be in tamper-resistant bait stations, or in inaccessible areas (out of sight and out of reach).
Bait stations are primary rodent management tools of pest management professionals (PMPs) and define our current approach to defending, protecting and mitigating rodent problems in our accounts — particularly commercial ones.
Clients and inspectors expect to see bait stations in a prescribed pattern and condition.
Other services, such as indoor trapping, exclusion and recommendations on sanitation, landscaping and process improvements, are important to customers, but are less likely to be on their radar of what comprises a typical service visit. All the public typically sees are the bait stations, and those in damaged or poor condition can send a negative message about your company and its services.
This month and in our next Rodent Reports in July, we'll concentrate on bait stations. There's a lot more to choosing and using them than may meet the eye.
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TAKING THE BAIT
It's not uncommon for pest management companies with multiple commercial accounts to have purchased thousands of rodent stations, making them one of the single-biggest equipment expense items. Then there's the cost of materials and time to fasten them down and to service them on a regular basis.
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If trends and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) proposals for future rodenticide regulations are any indication (Editor's Note: See Pest Control's March 2007 cover story for more information), the use of bait stations in rodent management will increase.
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Bait stations are here to stay, so it's a good idea to think about our bait stations, why they were developed, and how best to use them.
Keeping bait together, protecting it from dust and rain, keeping pets and domestic animals away, and creating feeding points for rats and mice where they might not otherwise exist — all were early reasons for creating and using stations. It also was easier to tell whether rodents were feeding by using stations, as opposed to baiting in wall voids or burrows where bait could not easily be seen or retrieved after placement.
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