By: Heather
Ron Dues, president of DSI Pest Control in Stuart, Fla., has built his sterling reputation primarily on the fumigation side of business. However, when one of his high-end horse stable accounts asked him to do something about its rodent population, he wasn’t about to let them down.
 Ron Dues (DSI), Dan De Poli (Bell Laboratories, kneeling) and Steve Niedzwiedzki (UAP) gear up to tackle a challenging roof rat infestation. |
“I was well versed on rodent control, having been in the industry for 30 years, but I can’t say that it was something I was used to,” Dues admits, adding that because some of the horses boarded at the account were worth well over $1million, he didn’t want to take any chances. “Even for a $100 horse like mine, horse owners want to know there won’t be any problems. I decided to call in the experts to back us up.”
At the ready were his Bell Laboratories sales representative, Dan De Poli and his distributor representative, UAP’s Steve Niedzwiedzki. With technician Pam Weldon also on board for the project, Dues forged ahead with a plan.
ALL ABOUT EDUCATION
As De Poli quips, Florida is “always in rodent season” these days, mostly because of an influx of residents, additional construction and more-intense hurricane seasons in recent years.
 Bait stations were placed just outside the window of each stall. |
Therefore, it was up to Dues and his team to educate the stable owners and other interested parties at the account about why the roof rat population was increasing and what DSI was going to do about it.
Before DSI came aboard, another pest management firm had the rodent account but was doing little more than harvesting the population. “It was like I was the Pied Piper when I came in for an inspection,” Dues says with a laugh.
He adds that while horse trainers and owners are not unaccustomed to seeing rodents in a stable environment, what with the abundant straw and open-air structure, the amount of roof rats present — he estimates about 120 were caught in the cleanout — posed a health issue as well as an aesthetic one. It was a message he made sure to get to the client.
“Before we even showed up for work, we gave them labels and material safety data sheets and laid out what we were going to do beforehand,” he says. “Then, once we got there, we addressed any questions or concerns they had.”
PREPARING THE ACCOUNT
The stable property itself is 25 acres, although the team focused most of its baiting and trapping efforts on the two acres that housed the two main structures connected by a lengthy breezeway. Multiple hallways and stalls, plus a steep roof, posed particular challenges. “There were also several drains, which we had some concerns about, but we found there was only stone underneath,” Dues explains.
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Sanitation was not a big issue at the account.
“Remember, we’re talking white-glove stables,” Dues says. “The offices were immaculate, and the straw was cleaned and changed regularly. Really, the only sanitation we did amounted to some vacuuming of the nesting areas in the ceiling beams.”
The team got started one late-winter morning, with the weather cool but relatively dry. Pre-baiting the stations one day earlier had saved time and labor (and, therefore, costs). In fact, they had a cart full of 90 of Bell’s LP (low-profile) stations loaded with a random mixture of Final and Fastrac bait blocks.
“I always tell my pest management professionals (PMPs) that when doing preventative baiting, use your favorite bait,” De Poli says. “But for corrective baiting, try a mix — especially in a stable environment, where there is so much food competition already. This ensures the best possible result in the least amount of time.”
CAREFUL PLACEMENT
The LP stations were placed strategically, and their slim profile meant they could even slide between the horse stall bars and the window well. More importantly, it ensured that the horses could not come in contact with the bait.
 Saddling up for a niche market |
The team also placed about 100 T-Rex snap traps, simply baited with a mixture of chocolate and peanut butter. All of Bell’s traps were placed based on rat tracks, rub marks and other telltale signs of rat infestations. De Poli says many were placed just by following the urine odor.
“As soon as you climbed a ladder, it was a no-brainer,” De Poli says. “The rats were grabbing straw and feed from the stalls and then running up the walls to the ceiling beams and roof area. The higher you went, the stronger the urine odor was, to the point of being obnoxious.”
The team chose the T-Rex brand to help lessen the risk of rat carcasses raining down on and spooking the horses. The traps’ “teeth” were strong enough to hold the rats in place, even when perched on a beam.
In the outer perimeter, about 20 of Bell’s Protecta Landscape rock-shaped stations were placed. While the LP stations were removed after the knockdown phase was complete, the camouflaged Protecta Landscape stations remain in place as monitors against future rodent activity.
QUICK RESULTS
De Poli says it’s typical to get bait acceptance within a week, but the team was surprised to learn that the acceptance was within 24 hours.
“Within a couple days, we gained control,” he says. “I think the placement in particular was key.”
Dues agrees and notes that the follow-up period was especially crucial.
“We followed up on a daily basis for two weeks to see what bait acceptance we had. Every visit, we removed lethargic rats and replenished bait,” he said. “After that, we went weekly for a month, then biweekly for a month, and now it’s every other month.”
In fact, he says, the population was taken down to the point where it’s a single-technician account.
“Pam added to her expertise during the cleanout, and she has since done more research and follow-up,” Dues says. “She has it under control.”
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