Mice on The March

As children we enjoyed the book “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse”, in which a town mouse goes to the country to visit his friend. But right now, it looks like the book has gone viral in the mouse community, as we have a surge in the number of mice with worrying numbers particularly in NSW’s Central West.

The CSIRO reports that the number of mice has grown due to a mild summer and our bumper grain crop. While many crops can thrive unaffected where mouse populations are low, high populations can cause significant damage, destroying thousands of hectares of crop, contaminating stored grain, and spreading disease.

The CSIRO works in partnership with the Grains Research and Development Corporation and advise the following measures for farmers to control mice numbers:

• Use seed destroyers to reduce potential food sources for mice.
• Clean up any spills of grain around field bins, augers, silo bags and other grain storage.
• Remove or reduce plant material, rubbish and general clutter around buildings, silos and fodder storage as these all provide protection for mice.
• Baiting is not a total solution for crop protection, but it does assist in minimising potential damage. Zinc phosphide is the only rodenticide registered for in-crop use. In trials of zinc phosphide-treated wheat grains at 1 kg/ha, 90–95% of the mouse population in the baited area were killed.
• Bait over large areas. Encourage neighbours to bait at the same time if they also have a mouse problem. The larger the area treated, the lower the chance of reinvasion.
• A wide range of baits are registered for use in bait stations in and around buildings and farm storages (within 2 metres) or enclosed spaces, e.g. drains. Note that zinc phosphide cannot be used around buildings, in towns or residential areas.
• Do not possess or use home-made mouse bait, as it can be deadly to humans, stock, and wildlife, and is in contravention of the Agricultural and Veterinary Products (Control of Use) Act 2002

• Topics:

• Agriculture
• Rural Roundup