There is a great deal of current community debate over rodent management. The APVMA is undertaking a detailed review of the use of second generation anti-coagulant rodenticides which will result in future use restrictions. The AEPMA, with this market environment in mind, produced the AEPMA Code of Best Practice for professional pest managers to follow.
This Code recommends a hierarchal approach to rodent management with the lowest risk options considered first, i.e. Exclusion, Removal of food and water, Harbourage reduction, Trapping and only then, rodenticide use as the last option.
When it comes to lethal trapping the requirement is for professionals to use the most humane traps available. All lethal traps should meet one of three welfare categories, A, B, or C and be proven through a reputable testing authority following standards established in New Zealand, through the National Animal Welfare and Advisory Committee and recommended by the expert committee commissioned by the European Union Food and Environment Research Agency. Where Traps meeting the highest standard, Welfare Category A, are available they must be used.
With these guidelines in place Ensystex is pleased to offer the only range of Welfare Category A rodent management traps and non-toxic rodent management products to Australian pest managers.
ROENTHOR® Gorilla Rodent Traps with Nara Lures are powerful, humane break-back traps that are baited with the allergen-free Nara Lures. These lock in place so they cannot be removed by the rodents, as often happens with baits used with other traps. Gorilla Traps are CE certified and approved by the German and Swedish Environmental Government Offices, due for their humane kill method.
You can see for yourself just how powerful the RODENTHOR Gorilla Traps are at: https://youtu.be/pZw3x6xzQHs, and this video shows you how to use the Gorilla Traps,
https://youtu.be/dSri6hzEXU4.
Rats and mice are clever, and we have seen more and more cases of mice taking bait from traps and not being caught. This simply can’t happen with Gorilla Traps and Nara Lures. Trials in the UK comparing the commonly used peanut butter with Nara Lures showed that Nara Lures caught close to 50 per cent more mice, largely since the mice were able, with other traps, to remove the peanut butter without being caught.
With snap traps, rodents are required to put pressure on the treadle in order to be caught. Gorilla Traps are baited with Nara Lures that are locked into the trap, meaning rodents are unable to remove the bait without firing the trap.
These Gorilla Traps also fit Ensystex’s HACCP Australia-certified Rodenthor range of Rodent Stations. If you add the Emitter Beep unit, the trap ‘beeps’ loudly to let people know a rat or mouse has been caught. A great innovation when setting traps in roof voids.
Also available is the Nara range range of non-toxic, allergen free rodent monitoring tools. Nara Bloc is a bait and monitoring lure for rats and mice made from an aromatised synthetic material. The fact that the Bloc is allergen free makes it suitable for use in food production companies – a huge benefit to the food industry, where allergen management has become a major topic of discussion. Nara Blocs last up to 12 months indoors and outdoors and are available in a range of flavours.
The use of rodent monitoring tools are an ideal tool to reduce the use of baits, as rodent activity can be confirmed and mapped before bait placement, and using a synthetic monitoring block offers significant benefits over food-based baits. This meets the recommendations of the AEPMA Code of Best Practice as it keeps the rodenticide baiting as a last resort.
Food-based monitoring blocks have a critical disadvantage as they serve as food for rodents, helping them to survive and increase the risk of rising reproduction. Moreover, they are prone to mould formation in damp areas and are often infested by non-target organisms, such as flour beetles, cockroaches, ants and snails. This simply makes it impossible to determine the rodent species present. With Nara Blocs you can identify the species present according to visible bite marks on the blocks.”
Nara Spray is an aerosol lure, based on the hunting practice where hunters drag a dead rabbit towards a trap to catch foxes. Rodent stations and traps are made of plastic, which has its own chemical smell. If you hold a lighter to anything plastic, it smells extremely toxic. This can be compared to what rodents smell when entering a rodent station.
Nara Spray seals away this plastic smell, making stations more attractive to rodents. The scent lasts around 2-3 months and needs to be renewed, but after repeated application it will slowly soak into the material. Renewing the scent every few months adds fresh attraction to stations, luring in new generations of pests.
Nara Spray can also be used to spray a bait line towards stations to lure rodents from nearby bushes or holes. Scientific trials have shown that rodents are curious and follow the smell with their sensitive noses over large distances, even up to 40 metres. Nara Spray is not only an aroma scent, but it also feeds the rodents with a nutritious vegetable oil, so they feel the desire for more. The spray consists of highly refined vegetable rapeseed oil that is nutritious for rats and mice and has its own natural scent that is enhanced with an added meat/beef aroma mixture.
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