young birds and eggs disappearing in aviary

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finchbreeder
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Location: Midwest of West. Aust. Coast
Location: Midwest of West.Aust.Coast

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it. The rats move into my roof and garage in drought years. Never had them in the avairies. Crossing fingers here. Mice are expected to be bad this year, already the local farming areas are being ariel bated with "Mouse Off" Looks like being a very dicey year for owls and raptors, as I understand this kills the birds that eat poisoned mice too. This is why we should all have rodent walls 600/700 into the ground and up above the ground to stop the so and so's from digging in. If we don;t then time to fix.
LML
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BrettB
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Hello LML,

Not sure which Mouse Off product they use, but the product for broad acre use has phosphine gas as an active ingredient.
This is only released once it gets into the mouses stomach and kills them quickly.
Unlike the second generation anticoagulants, it is not supposed to have as much long term toxic impacts on creatures that eat the dead mice.
So it should be safer for raptors and owls than your standard Bunning's product
Have you heard any reports to the contrary ?

Cheers
Brett
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are ." Anais Nin
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finchbreeder
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Location: Midwest of West. Aust. Coast
Location: Midwest of West.Aust.Coast

The local vets put out a warning that this was high risk to anything eating the mice. That the predator will be giving off gas and should only be transported in the back of a ute or with all windows open, and not to touch the vomit as it was corrosive.
LML
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BrettB
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Phosphine gas is certainly nasty stuff, think WW1 trench warfare.
I guess it depends on how long after death it hangs around for, not really sure about that one.

Edit : further reading and it seems the risk to predators is low. There are several postulated reasons for this a) lethal dose for a mouse of one treated grain is insufficient to kill the larger predator that might eat the dead mouse b) many predators avoid the intestines which contain the poison c) the poison often induces vomiting.
Some death of birds does happen, but it seems to be limited to birds that eat the treated grain (geese and some parrots), this is reduced by scattering the grain thinly over a large area and not onto bare earth where the treated grain is easily found.
LML is correct, the vomit is corrosive (phosphoric acid)
Importantly there are no cumulative effects, so if you survive the poisoning and recover there are no known long term effects

Cheers
Brett
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are ." Anais Nin
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finchbreeder
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Posts: 11489
Joined: 27 Jun 2009, 20:00
Location: Midwest of West. Aust. Coast
Location: Midwest of West.Aust.Coast

That is good to know. Maybe we have a slightly jumpy population up here. I understand the baiting has commenced. So hopefully it will control the anticipated heavy mouse numbers expected.
LML
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Gympie birds
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I still have a mix of native and Asian geckos. I prevent geckos from entering an avairy by using snake and mouse wire which seems to be doing the job.
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