Rodent-Proof Wall: An Efficient Physical Method for Controlling Rodents and its Efficiency Statistics

Summary

Here, we introduce three methods for the physical control of pest rodents, four methods for counting their effectiveness against rodents, and the statistics of the effect of building a rodent-proof wall.

Abstract

Rodent damage poses a significant threat to crops, human life, and health. Compared to chemical rodent control, such as placing poisonous baits, it is more economical and environmentally friendly to use physical methods, such as building a rodent-proof wall. This study introduces a method of physically controlling harmful rodents and four methods of calculating the effect of rodents control. To understand the controlling effect of the rodent-proof wall, an investigation was conducted on the Dongting Lake beach and corresponding farmland in the embankment in April and July 2012. Our findings illustrated that the density of the reed vole Microtus fortis in the farmland with rodent-proof walls was 0.52%, significantly lower than that in the farmland without rodent-proof walls (1.76%) after artificial trapping and drug extermination (χ² = 3.900, P = 0.048). The density of M. fortis that had migrated into the farmland in dikes with a rodent-proof wall decreased by 98.53%, significantly higher than the decrease of density in dikes without a rodent-proof wall (86.61%) (χ² = 11.060, P = 0.01). The results demonstrated the effectiveness of rodent-proof wall control. Therefore, building a rodent-proof wall should be advocated and vigorously promoted to prevent the migration of rodents into the Dongting Lake area and similar environments, as they cause harm.

Introduction

Rodent damage is an important biological disaster that causes extensive damage to all aspects of human production and life^1,2. In agriculture, rodent infestation of farmland damages crops³; in forestry, rodents eat tree seedlings, roots, bark, and plant seeds, leading to delayed forest regeneration and tree death, which in turn affects forest greening and sand fixation⁴; and in grasslands, rodents eat roots and seeds, leading to degradation of grassland vegetation and increased sanding, which affects the development of the grassland livestock industry

Protocol

All animal experiments were approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

1. Construction of rodent-proof wall

1. Construction of wave-retaining wall
   1. Build the wave-retaining wall 0.5 m higher than the embankment surface. Smooth the wall surface on the side of the lake with cement, and add a flat plate slightly wider than the wall to the top such that it extends 8 cm, similar to a tongue (Figure 1). This ensures that the rodents cannot climb the wall.
      NOTE: The height of the wave-retaining wall and the width....

Results

To determine the control effect of the rodent-proof wall, surveys were conducted before and after the water rose in April and July 2012, respectively, on the lake beach and corresponding diked farmland¹⁵. The survey sites were located in the Dongting Lake area of Hunan Province, namely, the lake beach outside Matangyuan in Yueyang County (29°14.5′ N; 113°03.2′ E), Beizhouzi Town in Datong Lake District (29°10.1′ N; 112°47.7′ E), Shuangfeng Dike in Nanda Town in Yuanjiang City (29°1.3′ N; 112°45.2′.......

Discussion

There are several critical steps in the protocol. The width of the tongue-shaped flat plate of the rodent-proof wall should be sufficiently wide, and the height of the wall should be set such that rodents in the area cannot cross it. When wave-retaining walls have gaps leading to the beach, the depth of the rodent-proof trench should be set to a depth that rodents cannot climb, and the width of the ditch should be set to a distance that rodents cannot cross. The height of the baffle plate and pots in the buried-pot barri.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Snap traps	Guixi Mousing Tool Factory, Jiangxi, China	large-sized	150 mm × 80 mm
SPSS	IBM	version 16.0