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The RAT TAX

Here’s a tax you don’t have to pay.

Rats and Mice can cost a farm a lot of money each

year.

This cost is the hidden RAT TAX.

The real problem is the losses are unrecognised

because they take place daily in miniscule

amounts. Disregarding all the other damage

rats do to buildings etc, feed losses due to rodent

consumption, spillage and contamination is the most

obvious cost. Most farmers grossly under estimate the

amount of feed lost. Scientists have computed

feed losses at 60- 90 gm per rat per day including

30 -60 gm eaten and the rest spilled or made unfit

for feeding.

A loss of say 40 gm per rat per day may not sound

much but if you are paying $300 per tonne of

feed the cost of housing 1 rat for 1 year is $4.38.

If we assume there are only 300 rats in a shed that’s

a tax of $1314.00 you need not have paid. And

these are conservative estimates.

To take the analogy further. Suppose a layer or

broiler shed has a population of 400 rats. Just to

be conservative assume that each rat only spoils

or eats 50 gm of feed per day. That’s 20 Kg of feed

per day per shed or 7.3 tonnes of feed lost to

rodents each year. That’s enough ( assuming

a 2:1 feed conversion) for a further 1825 x 2 Kg

broilers or 3600 dozen eggs.

It might seem impossible that a farmer

could “miss” that much feed but it is so easy to

do because the feed disappears in tiny amounts

daily.

This loss is the RAT TAX

To estimate the rodent population a good rule of

thumb to follow is that if an occasional rat is

seen during daylight hours there will be another

300 -1000 present in the facilty