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Integrated Pest Management: An Overview

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a combined approach to pest control that includes removing food sources, closing access routes, and killing or removing any remaining rodents. While some may include rodenticide poisons in their definition of IPM, it is meant to be the last resort after other, non-toxic measures are taken.

Integrated Pest Management can include a variety of methods. A number of these are listed below, with descriptions.

Rodent Exclusion

The bigger and older the building the harder this is.  Rats can get in through a quarter-sized hole and mice a dime-sized.  Exclusion work can be a lucrative wildlife-safe business for pest control companies.  To keep them out of your space:

• Close rodent entrance routes.

• Seal any holes in roofs, basements, crawlspaces, and walls.

• Use wire mesh extending partially into the ground to block off spaces under porches.

• Seal openings around cables, pipes, and wires where they enter your space.

• Monitor rodent activity.

• Use monitoring bait that makes rodent droppings glow green under black light.

• Try non-toxic rodent repellents.

• Apply botanical repellents, such as mint and cayenne pepper repellent bags..

• Try non-toxic repellents, such as botanical repellents (i.e. mint and cayenne pepper repellent bags), spicy foods like hot sauce, essential oils, strobe lights, and plug-in ultrasonic rodent repellent devices.

Removal of Food Sources

Rodents will eat almost anything. To starve them out of your space:

• Never leave pet food out for prolonged periods.

• If you feed birds, limit how much bird seed is available–only use small amounts of seed at a time, bring in feeders at night, and pick up fallen seed. At bigger establishments, you might consider using a shop-vac to clean animal feed.

• Harvest all food in gardens quickly.

• Keep trash cans securely covered, and garbage securely stowed. This might include using metal trash cans, closing the lids with bungee cords, and having a plan for efficient trash removal.

Target Remaining Rodents

To get rid of remaining rodents quickly, there are non-poison methods to consider. Some of these are listed below:

• Create raptor-friendly habitat to support them as free rodent control!

• Snap traps work by luring rodents with bait and killing them via a spring mechanism. They must be used where they are not accessible by children, pets, or other wild animals. To reduce the labor of checking these traps, you can use traps that hold multiple mice. Rats are faster and smarter than mice, so they need to be forced to enter the snap trap straight in from the “front” or they can steal the bait without getting caught so here are some gadgets to help with this.

• Rodent contraceptives are new compounds that rodents ingest. They reduce both male and female rodent fertility for ~45 days and therefore rodent populations. These rodent contraceptives are considered non-toxic to other wildlife, but further independent evaluations are still needed. [Liquid-ContraPest (VCD, triptolide), Pellets-Evolve (cottonseed oil, gossypol), and Pellets-GoodBites (Tripterygium Wilfordii Hook-F, TwHF)] 

• CO & CO2 Sprayers: immediately and painlessly kill rodents by filling their burrows with gas that suffocates them underground.  Care needs to be taken when close to buildings and homes.

• Dry ice can be placed into burrows after you seal up all the exits.

• Corn gluten meal products: Products with corn gluten meal (Rat-X & Mouse-X) coat the rodent’s stomach lining, blocking the thirst message from the stomach to the brain and they cannot vomit so they stop wanting water, leading to eventual dehydration and death; May need additional baiting (peanut butter?) to tempt rats due the bait tasting too salty.

• Last Resort Option: For serious infestations only, i.e. short-term, carefully monitored, and preferably indoors! Products with cholecalciferol / Vit. D3 (d-CON & Terad3) at high doses causes blood calcium to rise to toxic levels leading to kidney damage, bleeding, heart problems, and death.  ATTENTION: Vit. D3 is particularly lethal if ingested directly by other animals – pets or wildlife.  So, it should be used indoors where pets cannot get into it.

Note: Never use glue traps–they trap rodents without killing them, causing immense suffering, and often capture birds and other animals.

Trust Nature

A single barn owl can eat up to 1,500 rodents in a year. When we poison predators, we destroy nature’s pest control.