With harvest underway in many regions of Australia, grain spillages are likely to be a food source for mice, which could present a potential risk of further increased numbers over summer.
It is important that growers harvest as cleanly as possible to reduce mouse food availability in the paddock and monitor mice numbers over summer and have baits available if further control is required.
Grain producers and landholders are advised to minimise grain spillage during harvest, monitor paddocks and grain storage areas for mice activity over summer, implement control measures when necessary and report any mouse activity to the FeralScan MouseAlert app.
To reduce the risk of mouse numbers increasing over the summer, control measures such as the following can be put in place:
- Good on-farm hygiene
- Monitoring and detection - using hole counts, chew cards and trapping to determine mice numbers
- Baiting - bait when required according to the label directions on approved products to ensure baiting occurs within the optimal time frame. There is a small window within which to bait before crops mature and set seeds or pods.
More details on effective mouse control strategies can be found here: https://bit.ly/30Wfoab
