The 2021 Australian Mice Plague

Mice plagues have occurred in Australia many times in the past ever since mice were first introduced in the continent by European merchants and travellers. 

The ample amount of farms and farmlands there make it very attractive for the mice to find food and shelter there. The recent rains and a bumper harvest have led to a full-blown plague in the rural parts of New South Wales and Queensland which is making daily life miserable for the citizens. Many reports have quoted this to be the worst mice infestation in decades in Australia.

These mice live in the farms during the day and come out at night in thousands to completely lay the lands to waste. They eat everything that is available and many farmers have reported the loss of their harvest because of these mice.

Grocery store owners, farmers, hotel managers and members of the community are facing the adversity of this plague that has gotten way out of hand. The rural parts of northern, western and southern Australia are being completely ravished by these mice that come in great numbers. 

Supermarkets and restaurants that have food stocked are experiencing a hard time as well. Pesky little mice have managed to get into every cupboard and larder. Grains, fruits and even the containers that food comes packaged in are all destroyed by the mice. Cars and other vehicles are at the mercy of these rodents too. They cling inside through the bonnets and chew on all the wirings and other parts made up of polymeric materials. 

Homes and barns, hospitals and other public places are also facing adverse situations dealing with these mice. The mice reproduce way too fast and any method to curb them has proven to be unsuccessful so far. All the baits and traps have been rendered useless because of the rapid rise in their numbers. 

The exponential rise in mice numbers has led to many mouse-related diseases occurring. They carry many germs with them that they spread everywhere they visit and cause diseases. Mice urine and droppings contain bacteria and other pathogens that can cause various ailments in us humans. 

Many accounts of the ongoing plague has been reported and written. Some of them are given below:

“An ‘absolute plague’ of mice is ravaging eastern Australia”

“Mice in the cabinets. Mice in the streets. Thousands upon thousands of mice in the barn, pooing so much it takes six hours to clean up their waste.

These are scenes from Queensland and New South Wales, Australia, where an out-of-control mouse infestation is making life miserable for farmers, grocers and other citizens of the eastern Australian states.

Some farmers have already lost entire grain harvests to the rampaging mice, according to local media reports, while hotels have had to close because they can’t keep the critters out of the rooms. Staff at a grocery store in a small town northwest of Sydney reported catching as many as 600 mice a night. So far, at least three people have visited the hospital with rodent bites, The Guardian reported.

Steve Henry, a researcher at CSIRO (Australia’s national science agency) told The Guardian that the infestation is likely the result of an unusually large grain harvest, which drew more hungry mice to the area’s farms earlier in the season than usual.

“They start breeding earlier and because there’s lots of food and shelter in the system, they continue to breed from early spring right through into the autumn,” Henry said.

Despite these efforts, Alan Brown, a farmer from the New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga, said that the plague was likely just beginning, considering the rapid pace of breeding in mice; a single breeding pair can produce a new litter every 20 days or so, birthing more than 500 offspring in a season, according to Reuters.

“A mature female can breed every three weeks, they can pump them out,” Brown said. “And that’s what is going on … it is building up to a massive plague.”

In addition to being a nuisance and business threat, mouse plagues can also be vectors of disease, according to the Queensland Government’s 1998 report on mice in Queensland.”

“Australian Town Hit By Worst Mice Plague ‘in Decades’; Rodents Bite People, Invade Homes”

“Rodents ran haywire in farms in Gilgandra, northwest of Sydney, Australia, destroying harvest, entering hospitals biting patients and electrical wires.

In a statement to Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC), a farmer by the name of Ron Mckay said that at night thousands and thousands of mice covered the floor, moving around rapidly. Local reports cited at least 3 mice-related injuries among the patients at healthcare centers in Tottenham, Walgett and Gulargambone. Mice were found sailing inside water tanks, trapped in sealed food containers, pantries and wardrobes of homes, fouling the previously clean spaces with faeces and stinky smells as the mice plague, worst in decades, spread in NSW.

A farmer in Wagga Wagga and a member of the NSW Farmers Association told The Guardian that mice infestation has incurred him $300,000 (£168,000) loss as the rodents destroyed crops. The only way out is hoping that heavy downpours drown the rodents in their bills, locals told reporters. The mice swarm destroyed acres of hay bales, and not sparing the grocer’s communities, the rodents invaded shops in Coonamble, north-west of Sydney.

A local grocer in Gulargambone told Sky News that the staff was catching nearly 500 mice or sometimes 600 at night. “It’s pretty gross,” he said. He added that the shops stink and many mice die inside the supermarkets the locals relied on for foodstuff. People are “freaked out” and are going elsewhere for groceries, he said. The NSW government’s Department of Primary Industries found that the on-farm rodent control programs that rely on rodenticides alone to control and manage rodent problems aren’t effective or sustainable.”

C Tech Corporation’s 100% eco-friendly product Rodrepel™ can prove to be a real game-changer in the situation. It works on the principle of repellence and does not kill the rodent. 

Rodrepel™ triggers a fear response in rodents. It causes severe temporary distress to the mucous membrane of the rodents due to which the pest stays away from the application. The product triggers an unpleasant reaction in case the pest tries to gnaw away at the application. After encountering the above-mentioned emotions, the animal instinctively perceives it as something it should stay away from and stores this information for future reference. The fact that certain rodents are repelled is mimicked by other rodents as well. Thus, the other rodents too stay away from the applications. The unpleasant experience is imprinted within the animal’s memory and passed on to its progeny.

It will cause the rats to develop an aversion to all applications treated with the product. This will lead to the rodents naturally staying away from it. And because of conditioning and association, the progeny will also stay from them, thus giving a long term solution to the problem at hand. If the proper application is carried out, the rodents will find themselves with no readily available food. If this continues for a considerable time, the rats will start to move in search of food, thus vacating the area.

The products are available in the form of a solid masterbatch, liquid concentrate, lacquer, wood polish additive and spray.

The masterbatch can be incorporated into a range of polymeric and coating applications including films, wires and cables, pipes, etc. thereby making the end application rodent resistant. If silage films that are used for wrapping bales, hay and other farm harvest is incorporated with the masterbatch, then all these applications and other farm produce can be protected from rat attacks.

The liquid concentrate can be diluted with paints and other organic solvents and can be applied on walls of the infested area, like the interior and exterior of the houses, barns, grocery store buildings, hospitals, offices, etc. The liquid concentrate can also be diluted with water and used as a spray to spray around the infested area.

The already installed cables, pipes, and other applications can be coated with the lacquer to protect them from the rodents gnawing on this application and thus preventing the damage. The lacquer is a transparent product and it does not wear off easily.

The wood polish additive can be blended with wood polish and applied on the wooden articles and furniture used in hospitals and around houses. The fences around farms and farmlands can also be coated with wood polish mixed with the anti-rodent additive, making them more effective barriers and helping to stop the influx of more rats into the farms.

Our newly developed product is in the form of a spray and is an easy-to-use product. It can be sprayed around the pest entry point areas to repel the rodents and prevent them from entering the premises.

Rodrepel™ is cost-effective, eco-friendly and safe for everybody including us humans and the environment as a whole. It is RoHS, RoHS2, RoHS3, REACH, NEA, EU BPR, APVMA compliant and FIFRA exempted.

Contact us at technical.marketing@ctechcorporation.com if you’re facing problems with rodents and get the best remedies to combat the pest menace.

Also, visit our websites:

1] http://www.ctechcorporation.com/

2] http://www.rodrepel.com/

3] http://www.termirepel.com/

4] http://www.combirepel.com/

Follow our Facebook pages at:

1] https://www.facebook.com/Combirepel-411710912249274/

2] https://www.facebook.com/Termirepel-104225413091251/

3] https://www.facebook.com/Rodrepel-120734974768048/

Follow us on our Twitter pages at:

1] https://twitter.com/rodrepel

2] https://twitter.com/termirepel

3] https://twitter.com/combirepel

Uninvited Passengers under Hood!

Your car is your beloved companion. It adds little joy to your life by taking you from place to place. But did you know your car could be haunted by those pesky yellow-bellied rodents?

These creatures might snuggle under your car’s hood!

During the winter and spring months, when it’s cold outside they hibernate. They can freeze or starve if they don’t store enough fat so, a car is the perfect nesting place for them. Car engines are normally warm, dry, and undisturbed, making them a perfect place to eat, rest, or breed. And once they get inside, they will cause serious damage to the vehicle, the damage that may end up causing holes in your pocket. So you surely don’t want these creepy critters.

Marmots are large ground herbivorous squirrels, which includes 15 species and found in Asia, Europe, and North America. They are large rodents with short legs and enlarged claws adapted for digging. Despite being known to cause damage to gardens and crops they can be a serious threat to cars!

Your car would be eaten by marmots. Not the whole vehicle, just your radiator hoses, brake lines, and hood insulation. They prefer radiator hoses to search for an alternative for ethylene glycol which is found in anti-freeze liquid. Antifreeze has a naturally sweet taste and fragrance that pull marmot’s attention in.

The tasty rubber and plastic bits of your engine are attracting attention among marmots, but most marmot species have a voracious hunger for the most delicate car parts.

Here is the evidence of the same.

Marmot Rescued from the engine compartment of a car

Springville | March 26, 2020

When a Utah woman noticed something wrong with her car last week, she took it into a maintenance shop to see what the problem was. It turned out a large rodent was stowed away inside the engine compartment of her vehicle.

The woman brought her car to a Jiffy Lube in Springville on Saturday after noticing debris and some oil on the ground near her car. Mechanics opened up the hood and said there appeared to be a marmot stuck inside, according to Utah Division of Wildlife Resources conservation officer Sean Spencer.

After making some calls, Spencer was dispatched to help. The rescue was caught on camera and it shows the creature peering from underneath the vehicle’s engine hoses.

Along with this, a marmot pup causes the damage of more than $1,000 by climbing around in someone’s car in Crested Butte. Also, according to Harold Werner, Biologist, U.S. Fish, and Wildlife Service,

“Some 200 marmots do this every year, damaging 20 to 40 cars in Mineral King Valley”

These critters wreak havoc every year in the Mineral King area in California. It seems like marmots wait for cars to show up near that area!

These creepy critters may look cute but they can also carry diseases like plague and fleas can come in contact with humans and pets which are spread by marmots. Their droppings carry parasites and bacteria which may cause diarrhea and nausea.

Though marmots are the most well-known engine wreakers, they also transform grassland landscapes, providing habitats for many other species. They have often been considered ecosystem’s engineers!

So, it is important to keep marmots away from our vehicles but also keep in mind that they are not harmed or destroyed by us.

Not only marmots but other rodents like rats and squirrels are especially fond of gnawing on engine wires. Short circuits can occur if rodents chew away at the insulation covering the wires, resulting in costly engine damage. And the insulation on your new wires can simply be chewed away when you fix the wires!

Your car engine could be a desirable nest for rodents. They can use the engine’s insulating fabrics nesting material. There are several dark corners in the engine that could serve as safe havens for baby rodents.

Below is the news reported a few weeks ago.

‘Dublin couple may have to fork out thousands after rats chew through car’

A Dublin couple fears they will have to fork out thousands to repair their car after it was destroyed by rats at a city center flat complex.

The couple’s 2017 car had only just passed its NCT when it was destroyed by the rodents, who chewed through the electronics, sending the motor haywire at the Vincent Street Flats in Dublin.

The woman told Dublin Live: “We were out in the car on weekend and everything was grand.

“We didn’t go out on weekend but when we went out, my husband turned on the engine, and all the engine management lights all started flashing and beeping and saying the tyres were down and other things were wrong.

“He got out and checked the tyres and they were all fine but then when he was parking he realized the parking sensor wasn’t working either.”

The worried couple took the car to their mechanic who immediately spotted that the damage had been done by rats that have been plaguing the area for several years.

The couple is now waiting anxiously to find out how much it is going to cost to carry out the extensive repairs.

So, what can be the effective steps taken to keep them away from the cars without destroying them?

Now, the world is becoming environment conscious day by day so we at C Tech Corporation developed environment-friendly, non-hazardous, non-toxic, non-mutagenic, and non-carcinogenic product range to fight the problem without killing the pests.

Our product, Rodrepel, is anti-rodent and animal aversive that works on the principle of repellence. Its mechanism works on 6 prolonged strategies which not only effective against marmots but will keep away other rodents like squirrels, rats, beavers, and gophers.

Rodrepel is available in the form of a masterbatch, liquid concentrate, lacquer, and sprays.

The masterbatch can be incorporated with the polymer to manufacture cable sheathing and interior polymeric parts.

The liquid concentrate can be mixed with paints and used to coat cars and lacquer can be used as a topical application for existing wires, radiator hoses, and inside of the car.

The ready-to-use Rodrepel spray is easy to use and protects cars from rodent damage. It can be easily sprayed on any car parts.

The product is compliant with RoHS, RoHS2, RoHS3, REACH, APVMA, NEA, EU-BPR, and FIFRA exempted.

Contact us at technical.marketing@ctechcorporation.com to keep the rodents away.

Also, visit our websites:
1] http://www.ctechcorporation.com/
2] http://www.rodrepel.com/
3] http://www.termirepel.com/
4] http://www.combirepel.com/
Follow our Facebook pages at:
1] https://www.facebook.com/Combirepel-411710912249274/
2] https://www.facebook.com/Termirepel-104225413091251/
3] https://www.facebook.com/Rodrepel-120734974768048/

Follow us on our Twitter pages at:
1] https://twitter.com/rodrepel
2] https://twitter.com/termirepel
3] https://twitter.com/combirepel