Take Control of Your Rodent Management Program

Does your pest control provider really understand your needs?

Controlling and preventing rodents involves so much more than setting traps and foam-filling mouse burrows. Effective pest management requires a multi-pronged approach including spotting, tracking, trapping, exclusion and data-collection.

When William Hoffman meets a new food processing client, he starts with this conversation: “I say, ‘Tell me about your facility,’” said the president and CEO of Hoffman’s Exterminating Co. in Mantua, N.J. “Any good pest provider should ask you about your operations — how you bring in supplies, who your customers are, who are your employees and where are they coming from. Those answers can really determine how you set up pest management protocols for inbound potential infestations.”

Essentially, rodent and pest control is a component of your food safety program. It needs to be a partnership between QA specialists, management and the pest professional.

When Emory Matts started his career in the QA industry, he was an intern at Nestle working in the QA department. “Every week, we did a walk around the plant, looking for issues, not just pest related,” said the North American rodent technical manager at Rentokil, Carrollton, Texas. “If we saw a stain, scrape or gnawing, we looked into it to make sure it wasn’t rodents or insects.”

Regular inspections involving a pest management professional are a must.

Of the QA specialists who responded to our annual State of the Rodent Control Market survey, 64% said rodent control is performed by a pest control company only. Six percent rely on an internal department only for rodent control. And 27% take a collaborative approach, involving internal staff and a pest management professional.

Rethinking Rodent Control

Some of the traditional tools pest control companies have relied on to control rodents for decades are at risk of being regulated out of the picture. For instance, second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) that were introduced in the 1970s have been restricted in some states, including California.

“The biggest challenges we are going to be facing is the lack of tools to replace second-generation anticoagulants and glueboards,” said Shannon Sked, Ph.D., B.C.E., fumigation director at Western Fumigation, Parsippany, N.J. “So, the most important question for QA professionals to think about now is, ‘How am I going to plan for this so I can proactively prevent rodents from entering the facility? Because my pest control partner is not going to have all the options they once did.’”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed interim decision on SGARs. “Part of that decision is to list them as restricted-use pesticides,” Sked shared. “And in doing so, those now require a different level of technician and training, which there are not enough of in the industry.”

Additionally, several states are considering banning glueboards for ethical reasons, Sked said. The claim is that glue traps immobilize rodents, causing them to slowly dehydrate and suffer. A California CBC News piece called the traps “heinously cruel.” Some claim the same about snap traps.

Sked said this is a “big concern for rodent management.”

But the flip side is, it forces PMPs and QA specialists to rethink “control” and focus on proactive prevention. “We have talked for decades about the importance of sanitation and exclusion,” Sked said. “Sanitation is pest management. Exclusion is pest management.”

In the QA survey, 30% of respondents said they were “not interested at all” in reproductive controls including electronic monitoring or exclusion.

Sked added, “[Pending regulations] will force us to develop sanitation prerequisite programs at a higher level, because we are not going to have the other tools to get rid of rodents.”

On the Radar

The good news is, with advancing remote monitoring and creative strategies, PMPs and QA specialists can focus on spotting and tracking so they understand the real rodent problem. Then, they can focus their investment and time in those areas.

For instance, Matts uses trail cameras typically seen in deer hunting. “You can see whether a rodent runs by and gather 15-second to 2-minute video clips, even in total darkness,” he explained. “The longer videos can be helpful to see where rodents are running. We have gotten good footage showing how rodents can climb and squeeze through tight spaces.”

Monitoring baits that are non-toxic can include additives that make rodent droppings glow bright green under black lights. PMPs can identify the species and size of infestation and track movement to nesting areas. They also can see active burrows using a black light. Talcum powder or cornstarch allows you to see footprints in the dust.

“We look for rub mark deposits where they squeeze into holes and leave behind fur and sebum,” Matts said. “Then, we plug up those holes to find out if it changes their pattern, and we dust the runways they use.”

Trail cameras have caught rodents avoiding traps, Matts said. “They see it and learn to jump around it — it’s called equipment avoidance where they are avoiding the rectangular snap traps, so we might use other traps that don’t look like those or bury the traps in wood shavings or shredded paper so the rodents just walk over them.”

Another strategy is to pre-bait traps without setting them for a week. “When they walk over it again, there is a better chance of catching them,” Matts said.

Hoffman added, “As technology evolves, our ability to identify, track and trace is becoming more sophisticated. We can use that information to better understand how rodents enter a food plant and survive and how they move about the structure.”