© InternationalJournal.org Evaluation of Bait Carrier for Rattus Rattus L. Infesting Commercial Poultry Facilities in India: A Step Towards Sustainable Poultry Management

• Main Author: Sandep Kandhwal
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Rattus rattus
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.301.8993; http://www.openaccesslibrary.org/images/Sandep_Kandhwal.pdf

Abstract: Rodents cause significant economic loss to poultry by feeding on poultry feed, contaminating it, damaging eggs, attacking chicks and transmitting/carrying several diseases. The house rat, Rattus rattus is the most abundant rodent pest infesting the commercial poultry facilities in Haryana (India). So the study was designed to evaluate bait carrier for controlling Rattus rattus L. infesting poultry farms. The bait preference was studied by offering five foods namely cracked wheat, wheat flour, cracked maize, poultry feed and fish meal to rats under no-choice, bichoice and multi-choice feeding trials. Significant (P<0.05) differences were recorded in daily intake of different foods in no-choice feeding trials. The average daily intake of different foods was recorded to be 4.20 to 12.80 g / 100 g of body wt. Taste and texture of food were found to influence the feeding response of R. rattus.The addition of additives (sugar and groundnut oil) significantly enhanced the palatability of the test foods in bi-choice feeding trials. In multi-choice feeding trials the five foods were eaten in the following order of preference; cracked maize>cracked wheat> wheat flour> poultry feed> fish meal. Furthermore, in multi-choice feeding test, R. rattus appeared to establish a particular order of preference of foods on the first day of feeding itself and that was maintained on the subsequent days by daily exploration and sampling of all foods. The present findings indicated that cracked maize mixed with suitable additives such as 2 % sugar and 2 % ground nut oil should be used as a bait base for controlling R. rattus in poultry farms either using traps or using poison bait in protected bait boxes. 1.