Dangers of Rats, How to Eliminate Them from Your Farm, Home, and Property

Rats are said to be dangerous because they are destructive, and at the same time carriers of various diseases, in most cases difficult to eliminate from your farm, home, and property.

 

Rats are very stubborn rodents that get into your home with or without your consent.

 

In other words, you don’t have to invite them before they invade your home.

 

They gain access into your home through openings, cracks, in the walls of your house.

 

Sometimes they can also climb over your fence just to gain access to your property.

 

Their presence in your home poses a great health risk to you and your family.

 

Apart from the enormous damage, they may cause to your foodstuff and other edible items that usually attract them to your house.

 

If their population is not checked they will continue to incur an economic loss to your home.

How to know or detect the presence of rats in your house

• They make sounds or noise, especially at nights or in a dark and lonely room. You will get to hear some scratching sounds or annoying noises often.

 

• Their droppings or feces will be a visible presence in or around where they normally feed or stay.

 

• Marks along walls or heirs along their paths or where they normally feed in the dark or at nights.

 

• Anywhere there is an opening or crack around your house or fence, it could be their passages. And they are often found around that area trying to gain access or get out.

 

• Eating or tempering with your foodstuff especially the ones kept in the store or quiet place with less human activity.

 

Dangers of Rat and Why You Must Eliminate Them, They Cause Diseases and Discomforts to Humans

Lassa fever

It is a viral hemorrhagic fever that is transmitted to humans via contact with food or household items contaminated by rodents especially mastomys rats.

 

The disease is endemic in most parts of West Africa, particularly, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Ghana.

 

The fever results in severe diseases and fatality if not detected earlier it can affect several vital organs such as the liver, spleen, and kidneys.

 

It also affects caregivers and health workers. It has been said of how it infected a medical doctor attending to infected patients in Adamawa state in Nigeria the doctor later lost his life.

 

Salmonella

This disease can be caused by consuming food or water that is contaminated by rat’s feces or urine.

Murine typhus

It is transmitted to humans by rat’s fleas. Flea infested rats can be found throughout the year especially in humid tropical regions of the world.

 

People who visit rats infested buildings or surroundings are at risk of been infected with the murine typhus.

Rats can also bites

Rats can also bites, especially when threatened or pressured. This may happen when you attempt to kill or catch the rats especially the rats in the wild. Though rats bites aren’t always serious but can cause some pain or it can result in some sorts of bacterial infection.

 

 READ ALSO: Germs: How To Protect Yourself And Your Family From These Dangerous Enemies.

 

They cause economic loss

Apart from the health risks caused by rats, they cause significant economic loss to the farmer.

 

Wherever they are found especially if they are left unchecked.

 

Where food is kept, they often destroy and tear down the bags in which food is stored. Thereby wasting the food and contaminating and infecting it.

 

Rats are dangerous because they attract dangerous predators

 Predators such as snakes find their way into your farm, homes, and property.

 

Grains, rodents and snakes are on the same food chain. Particular places like stores where food items are kept.

 

Some big snakes feed on rats, while rats feed on grains or food items in your house. And rats are very good at digging and burrowing through the walls of your house.

 

And once they do that snakes will follow suit, through those holes. To gain access to your homes and property to feed on the rats.

 

We all know what snakes do to humans if they feel threatened. The bites or poison from snakes could be fatal if not properly attended to immediately.

In some cases, it can result in the death of an individual bitten by a snake if left unattended to.

 

 

Recommended for Reading:

Cockroaches, Housefly and Bed bugs: How to Deal with This Annoying Visitors.

Fresh Food, Sanitation, and Hygiene the Perfect Combination to a Healthy Life.

Poisoning: How to Protect Yourself and Your Children from it.

 

Understanding the dangers of rats, what attracts them, and how to eliminate rats from your home

The first step is understanding how and why rats got into your property, house in the first instance.

 

What attracted them to your house? Several things must have encouraged them or attracted them into your home.

The following reasons might be responsible:

Leaving your door open

It might be carelessness on your parts when you often leave your doors open. Some of these rodents will always find their way into your home. Not only rodents’s even snakes can crawl into your property. When you leave your door open carelessly.

 

What to do especially when you live in the countryside with trees, bushes in your surroundings. Is to place a wire nets on your doors or windows.

 

This will permanently prevent those rodents or reptiles from gaining access to your home at all times. Even in your absence, it is good and advisable you always closed your doors when you are in, or not at home.

 

Crack walls and fence

Always check and inspect your walls and fence at least once or twice a week. To make sure there are no cracks or holes through which rodents can gain access to your property.

Keeping and stockpiling equipment, unused farm machines, and unnecessary load, etc

 Try as much as possible to prevent hidden corners. Avoid keeping obsolete equipment, loads and machines you don’t use or need in your farm and property.

 

Strive to have clear space in your property. Those unwanted obsolete equipment and machinery provide a safe haven for rodents and reptiles.

 

Keeping poultry

For those of us, that keeps backyard chickens and various poultry birds. The poultry feed you use in feeding your birds is a palatable meal to rats and other rodents, it can attract them to your farm, house or property.

 

If you keep them carelessly without properly storing the feed, in an airtight container such as a plastic or metal drum. These feeds are capable of attracting rodents because they are also looking for shelter and food.

 

Make sure the feed is properly stored or kept in an enclosed container so that rats cannot gain access to them.

 

If they don’t have food to eat they will move elsewhere for food. But if you leave those feed without proper storage. Then of cause, they will feed fat on those feed, thereby creating serious economic loss and disease to the farmer and the birds as well.

 

The use of domesticated animals

You can use some domesticated animals such as cats and dogs to control the population of rats on your farm and property.

 

It is very effective in some quarters, especially in Africa. They use cat a lot to control the population of rats in their homes. Cats feed on rats and are very good at hunting them down for a meal.

 

The use of rats repellent, rats traps, rats poison is also very effective in controlling or eliminating rats from your home, just follow the manufactures guidelines on how to use it properly, and ensure you stick to the safety rules on how to use it. So that you don’t cause harm to yourself or any of your family members.

 

Fumigation

You can also hire the services of a professional fumigation company to help you eliminate rats and reptiles from your property. I believe they will do a good job.

 

Conclusion

It is a fact that rats are dangerous, destructive and are unwanted guests in our farms, homes, and property.

 

Food and shelter are the major attractions of rodents. You have to devise a proper means of storing your food items for both animals and humans. Always use airtight containers to store grains and poultry feeds.

 

Avoid all hidden corners and spot, make sure they are empty and free from obsolete and unwanted equipments and machineries.

 

Practice good hygiene and make sure you are very careful about your storage facility.

 

If you can always store and hide your food beyond their reach then they will look elsewhere probably go back to where they came from.

 

Prevention is always better than cure, from day one don’t allow any rats into your home, because they replicate as fast as you can ever imagine.