Facts About Mice Poison
Mice poison can be an effective tool for ridding your home from these annoying and potentially dangerous pests, but it has risks that you should be made aware of before you choose to use it. Mice can be extremely troublesome little pests. They can enter your home from the smallest entry way and live in hidden portions of your home. Mice are attracted to food and water found in homes and even the slightest amount of crumbs in an otherwise clean home can bring them in. In fact mice only need 1/10th of an ounce of food to survive and only 1/20th of an ounce of water. Mice can damage property with their chewing (sometimes they can even cause fires); trigger allergies in certain people and can contaminate food with their urine and droppings. Mice can contaminate 10 times the amount of food than they actually eat and can carry at least 10 different kinds of disease. For all of these reasons it is necessary to rid your home of mice.
You can prevent mice from entering your home by rodent-proofing your home, cleaning up food messes and crumbs, not keeping pet food left out and controlling outside vegetation, but sometimes even the cleanest house will find mice in them. Mice are relatively easy to trick into feeding, which makes mice poison such an effective tool for removing them. Poison allows you to kill mice without having to see or to catch them, and there are many varieties of mice poison that can be extremely effective. Poisons may have unwanted side effects that you should be aware of.
Poisons may be dangerous to children or household pets, and also may affect any predatory animals that may eat the dead bodies of poisoned mice. The goal of poisons is to kill mice, not hawks, owls or cats. Another concern of poisons is where the poisoned mice go to die. No one wants a poisoned mouse to die behind their walls and create smells. Always follow the directions on the poison’s label to avoid any unwanted problems or concerns. It is best to place poison where mice travel, such as along walls, and where there is clear evidence of mouse activity such as dropping or chewing.
There are several different kinds of poison made to remove mice. Zinc phosphide is a chemical that reacts with the mouse’s stomach acid to produce a lethal phosphine gas, which kills the mouse. These poisons are considered to be relatively safe for pets and wildlife. Bromethalin is an acute toxin mitochondrial poison. It works by removing the mouse’s ability to produce energy, which results in death. This type is usually also considered safe for pets and predators as most of the poison is removed from the body before they can be eaten by predators. Cholecalaiferol causes kidney, heart and lung failure in mice by causing the body to release an excess of calcium. This produces no poison that can be ingested by predators.
The most common forms of mice poison are anti-coagulants. These work by causing internal bleeding within the mouse’s body. The amount of poison used is very small, making it generally considered safe for pets and humans, and the dead mouse will become dehydrated and therefore will create less of a smell. It also has a simple antidote called K1 for accidental ingestions. Examples of anticoagulant poisons are brodifacoum, bromadiolone and difethalone.
The effectiveness of poisons is based mainly on their dispersal method and placement. There are poison types that come in parafinized blocks for outdoor use, place packs for indoor use and even water baits to kill through water the mice drink. To avoid accidental ingestion of poisons by children or pets, it is important to use a bait block or bait station. These can be either tamper proof or non-tamper proof and can help prevent animals other than mice from getting into the poisons.
Mice poison in various forms can be purchased from grocery or hardware stores in easy to use packages. Again it is important to always follow the given instructions. If the problem gets out of control, you can always hire a professional exterminator.