Squirrel poison question

[The Minkey]

Anyone know if there's a visual difference between squirrel poison and rat poison? Only one is legally approved for use with squirrels, presumably the most effective one.

An elderly friend has a squirrel nesting in her attic. The pest control guy put down 4 small trays of poison a couple of weeks ago which went untouched til last week. By Monday, all four dishes of poison had been emptied. As he told me it would take 4 days (!!) for it to take effect, I left it til yesterday for the call back, i.e. visit no.2. Squirrel was in its nest very much alive still. In the course of our conversation, the guy said a couple of things that made me wonder if he was sure of what he was doing, which in turn has led me to wonder if he's using the correct bait especialy as he didn't seem knowledgeable about the dose required.

Squirrel's fate aside, I'm getting mighty fed up. I'm the only person she's got who can go up and check but I have quite a bad fear of heights and start getting vertigo by the third rung up a ladder so I'm finding it really stressful having to keep going up there. So my interest in whether it's the correct poison or not is 1) to ensure the squirrel suffers as little as possible, and 2) to ensure I'm climbing that ladder no longer than necessary.

[fl0wer]

If he has put Warfarin, it doesn't work all in one fell swoop.

The way it works is by thinning blood so that next time, which could be a few days away, the creature bruises itself it bleeds internally to death. It faints first then it never comes round.

Rather than write emotive stuff about this, finding and properly disposing of the carcass is the only way to prevent anticoagulant poison entering the food chain, as the Pest Control Officer knows.

[Saffron]

Surely part of good pest control contract should be that the contractor returns to collect the carcass of the squirrel?!

[Mands]

Why does the squirrel have to be poisoned. Poor thing......why can't he be caught and released outside and block his access route to the attic so he can't return there.

[aquarius moon]

Mands Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Why does the squirrel have to be poisoned. Poor

> thing......why can't he be caught and released

> outside and block his access route to the attic so

> he can't return there.

Couldn't agree more. Warfarin causes a slow painful death. Does she really deserve this just because she has made the mistake of choosing to come out of the cold and nest in the attic?

I despair :(

[malumbu]

Vermin.

http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/33015?category=35011

[Voyageur]

I love watching squirrels and think they are pretty quite - from a distance - but have fought a long battle with squirrels in the loft. Blocking the entry/exit points doesn't work as the little critters just chew another hole in the soffats and I have ended up with a patchwork of expensive repairs over the last 2 years or so. I bought all manner of sonic anti-squirrel devices - all en expensive waste of money. Eventually I had to get the council vermin guys in but, even though they charge roughly a hundred quid - they just put poison down but do come back for a follow up visit.

After they had carried out the treatment the squirrels were no longer present and the holes they had made sealed up. few months down the line, the little bastards came back again :( I resorted to putting shop bought rat poison up there and that seems to have done the trick. For now.....

The trouble with them being in a loft is that they make one unholy mess and can be pretty noisy, plus they apparently have a propensity to chew through cables which might present a fire risk.

[Robert Poste's Child]

When the pest control man came to my office once he showed me photos of what can happen when vermin chew through electrical cables. Poison seems kinder than exploding.

[The Minkey]

Yes, they can do a lot of damage especially if you're in a top floor flat and the electrics run across the floor of the loft space as my friend's does. I had to get an electrician in a few months ago because her electrics kept shorting, both lights and powerpoints. As soon as the electrician put his head through the loft hatch, he could see the electrics arcing all over the place. The cables had been chewed down to the copper, she was lucky it hadn't caused a fire, and it cost a fair bit for the rewire. It's appropriated all the loft insulaton for its nest too. It's unfortunate it's nested in a really bad place, however, I think it understandable they want it gone asap.

As for the poison bit: I do understand what it is and how it works. I've since been told the operator is using the wrong kind and the wrong quantity. The poison set up he's used looks identical to what you'd use if you were to buy a rodenticide from a hardware shop, the blue colour and size of the dishes. The authorised stuff is coloured red.

As it's not the optimum concentration of warfarin, what seems to be happening is that the squirrel is sickening but not dying which is causing unnecessary suffering, imo. Let alone the inconvenient fact that the use of mouse/rat poison on squirrels is illegal.

It's all very odd beccause the pest control company's website states that they only use humane traps so as not to harm the animal when they should know it's illegal to release a gray squirrel into the wild. When the landlord called them to ask about the poison, they denied it's been used.

[Saffron]

Oh dear, that's very unfortunate! :-( Report it to the council?

[fl0wer]

Yes, Saffron has a good idea there. Maybe Trading Standards dept

[grace3]

Can we be sure that the squirrel actually has nice dreams after being poisoned? I prefer the old way a square mouth shovel on the back of the head.

[BB100]

I had a 'squirrel' in my attic which I failed to catch for many years using bait and a squirrel trap. We blocked up the holes in the roof and it bit its way back in. Then we decided to put a video camera in the attic and we found out it was a huge rat which sat for 20 minutes eating the poison and came back each day to eat some more and wouldn't die! The pest control people from the council refused to believe us that it was a rat until I showed them the video.

It took ages for us to catch it but we used a gadget that electrocutes them instantly. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pest-Stop-PSERK-Electronic-Rat-Killer/dp/B000FII3YW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392629709&sr=8-1&keywords=rat+killer

We had to move the gadget around a bit and put peanut butter trails in and upto it. Once we caught it we were not bothered for 6 months but when it got colder again another one appeared which the gadget killed. Then another one appeared, killed that, and then another. We then begun to understand the term 'rat run' because we realised our house was on one and nothing could stop new ones coming. The night before we moved we heard the scuffling of tiny feet above our heads again and left it with the new owners.

I would recommend you make sure it really is a squirrel first so you can get the appropriate treatment.