Rodents have been studied, observed and analyzed for years but a 100-year old quote from a British researcher aptly sums up what many researchers, pest management professionals and commercial property managers feel about these unwanted, disease-carrying visitors. And that is rodents are “diabolically clever” animals.
How successful is the rodent specie? Noted rodent researcher and expert Dr. Bobby Corrigan points out rodents are one of the most successful mammals and make up 43 percent of all mammals inhabiting the planet.
The Sprague Pest Experts do have a grudging respect for our rodent rivals but that doesn’t stop us from continually looking at new methods to keep them out of food processing and commercial facilities and quickly eliminate them should they find their way inside.
Old school thinking had rodents being most troublesome in the fall of the year as the weather changed and temperatures dropped, and they searched for winter harborage. That notion has gone out with the weekly garbage, so to speak, as rodents must be considered a year-round threat to commercial facilities.
Commercial facilities of all types, especially those involved with food processing, service or storage, are susceptible to rodent infestations primarily because of the accessible food, water and harborage sources that are present.
And when you consider the high traffic volume of people and deliveries coming and going in many commercial accounts – one of the most common ways rodents enter a facility is in packaging materials, pallets and shipments of food commodities like grain and seed.
If you ask the Sprague Pest Experts what the best rodent management practice is, we will tell you it’s not allowing them access to your facility in the first place. Keeping rodents on the outside looking in is accomplished be establishing and following good sanitation protocols and rodent-proofing your facility.
Key elements to implementing an effective rodent exclusion program include:
- Using quality exclusion materials installed by a trained professional or you will be wasting your time and money.
- Inspect and seal all rodent pathways entering or connecting to structures at ground level, below ground and above ground.
- Most rodent exclusion programs forget to cover a structure’s roof – one of the most common entry points for rodents with its multiple vents and utility openings.
- Make sure overhead loading dock and entry doors have sturdy weather-stripping installed to deny rodents access.
- Keep the landscape around your facility to a minimum and well-maintained. Overgrown shrubs and grass provide the perfect cover for rodents looking for a way in.
- Don’t underestimate a rodent’s ability to gain access to a building; they only need an opening of a ¼ inch to make their way inside.