Controlling Rodents And Pests With Natural Solutions
Jul 31st, 2009 Posted in environment | no comment »The idea of having rats and mice around your home isn’t a pleasant one unless you like to keep the creatures as pets ” in which case they should be collected from a pet shop, not the yard. People who want to keep their homes and yards free of rodents look for various ways in which to get rid of them, including poisoning them and using traps to kill them. Whatever method they choose, a lot of people feel guilty when they kill these furry little creatures because they don’t really want them to suffer, and it’s hard to argue that things like poison don’t cause suffering before death.
The good news for people who are worried about rodent control is that there are many natural ways that can be used to get rid of both rats and mice, so if you want to remove them from your home you won’t have to kill them. Some people say it’s fine to kill them humanely, but there is a definite argument and difference of opinion over what constitutes a humane death, as well. For people who don’t want to deal with any of the mess of dead rodents and want to avoid causing the little creatures suffering, there is really only one choice ” discouraging them from coming around and/or removing them in a way that doesn’t harm them.
Trapping the rodents in the most humane way, with live traps as opposed to glue or snap traps, is one of the most natural and the best ways with which to get rid of rats and mice. Using those kinds of traps just means that the little creatures will be trapped inside and that you or someone else can simply take the traps to another location and release the animals inside. People generally don’t do this because they think that the rodents will just go right back to where they came from, but this usually doesn’t happen if the rodents are taken far enough away.
Before you take any drastic measures to get rid of rats or mice be sure that you aren’t giving them a reason to come around your home. Things like keeping woodpiles and compost piles away from your home, keeping your trash cans tightly closed, and not leaving your pets’ food sit outside where rats and mice can smell it can go a long way toward keeping your house and yard free of rodents. If you follow simple tips like these, and trap and remove any rodents you might already have around, the odds are that your rodent problem will go away.
However, if you’ve tried that and it hasn’t been enough, or if you already do these things and there are still rodents, there is more that you can do without causing harm, such as getting special fragrance pouches that discourage mice and rats from coming into your home. These aren’t toxic and you can’t smell them, but rodents can ” and they don’t like them at all. This can help to clear up a stubborn rodent problem for people who are very serious about getting rid of the rodents and keeping them out of their homes but equally serious about not killing or torturing them.
For people who don’t mind killing the rats and mice but would prefer not to use chemicals and traps to do so, getting a cat or even a small dog can often do the trick. Cats, especially, are natural predators for rats and mice, and they’ll be inclined to give chase without any training. The downside to this is that the cats will not generally eat what they kill, so they may leave the dead rodents as ‘presents’ for the family, and this can be an unpleasant find that a lot of people would really prefer to avoid if possible.
Regardless of your chosen method for rodent control, be sure that you know what the facts are and that you use what feels right to you and what you know is safe, rather than making an assumption about the safety of a particular method and then being wrong. Putting out rodent poison when you have pets and/or small children, for example, is usually not a good idea. Rats and mice can carry disease and shouldn’t be in your home, but make sure what you’re using to get rid of them isn’t actually more dangerous than the rodents themselves or you could end up having more problems that you anticipated. Get rid of rodents the natural way, and you won’t have to worry about chemicals and other problems.
