Rat Poisoning

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

It is that time of yr (atumn) when temps drop and vermin start heading inside to avaries and homes.

When vermin maintaince is steped up.

We set bait traps and have bait in the saftey rooms of our avairies.
We change the types of baits to prevent resistance.
This time we are using Brodifacoum, a potent anticoagulant agent.
3 days ago one of our King parrots un hooked the door catch (never happened before, she must have worked on it for a long time) and got into the safety room, found the block and chewed it up.

A quick bit of research ..could not find anything for bird antidote..said Vitamin Ki 1.5 to 2mg per kilo of animal...which relates back to approx 250 microgms per day for at least 10 days
At this piont we rang the vet, who confirmed the dosage, and prescribed 1 25mg capasile...this is enough for 100 doses

We then MTed the capsile out onto a bit of glass, divided into 1/2, then 1/4, then 1/8. Then divided that into 10. with a razor blade.

Ideally this should be crop injected...this is an avairy breed bird, she is a very large female and well spirited...We caught her and put in a 300mm x 400mm x 600mm cage inside.
The reasoning being, since the poison is an anticoagulant, we dont want her to cut or bruise her self and bleed.
Parrots love a bit of cheese or butter once they know what it is.
In the 1st couple hrs she got a taste for butter...tiny bit on the tip of a butter knife wpied onto one of the cage wires.
Once this was done, we dipped, soaked up one of the tiny piles of Ki and made avalible to her. She took it nps
Just in case every 2nd day we are giving a double dose, morning and evening.
It is now 4 days, it is around this time, and over the next couple days we will see how things are going. So far other than frustrated from the small space she is fine.

We will post back as things progress or change.

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

We are 6 days in, in therory She should be very sick, bleeding from nose and most proberly in the droppings or dead.

No sign of anything untoward...thu this afternoon I was not sure if she was having some beathing issues or she had a bit of fluff or something stuck in her nostrils....after a bit of scratching she all symptoms disappeared.

A little more research, mentions Vit C should also be avalible, fresh fruit and her veggie diet supplies this anyway...Fejoas and figs in season on the fruit trees at the moment, with pasley part of the normal veggie mix.

Have decided to extend the Vit Ki out to at least 12 days.

The butter works very well to admin the doses.

wyndara · Snr Member Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 113

I have had 2 near disasters with rat bait over the years keeping birds . First one was when one of my pairs of major mitchells got into a bait station and consumed the entire contents. Vet gave me injectable vitamin K ,3 days worth for both birds. all went well in fact both birds showed no signs of illness. The vet then informed me that the vitamin K was only a precaution as most birds show little effect from rat poison??????? Years later a pair of over active kakariki ate a large amount of bait, it was days later before i realised what had happened, i was only alerted when i noticed their bright green droppings. this pair also showed no signs of illness, no bleeding they never slowed down, after a couple of days their droppings returned to normal and they went on to breed soon after.!!!!!!!

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

We are out to 10 days all looking good.

wyndara, what sort of poison?
There are several types
A stuff called Warfin ??/ is similar to Brodifacoum, sort of a 1st generation of the pioson, no where as effective.
The others I dont know
Going from comments by some other breeders, and a couple vets, and googling, they are very suprised our bird was still alive after 5 days.
Brodifacoum is illegal in many countries, and when birds or animals eat a piosoned rat or something they often die or have seriuos Liver issues.

Reading between the lines in your posts over the yrs, Im preety sure your diet is rather though, allthe time... Like us I would think your diet being what I suspect has several veggies high in Vit K to start with.
When one of you young kakariki whack the wire real hard, cut themselves across the forehead, blood everywhere, we dont worry, because they stop bleeding pretty quick.
In an older post a few yrs back I mention methods to stop bleeding, Silver nitrate sticks, that was a kakariki lost a toe, and only a short time after aquiring from a breeder who 'said' they had consistant balanced diet.
And we feed cabbage, cali, broccolli spinge, sliver beet, parsley, ALL the high Vit Ki sources 2x a day, 365 days a yr.

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

13 days in and she is still good as gold.

And a thanks to the Vets
http://www.netvet.co.nz/

They are not specialist avain vets...but unlike most other Vets have a very good base knowledge, and even more important are not affaid to refer one onto specialists.
When we discovered the issue it was after 4pm in the afternoon on a Sat. with the closest avain vet closed for the weekend.
We had no need to refer to the specialist on Mon, and have not needed to with the occassional issues in the past.
They have given great service to us for well over a decade now, could be 2 decades now.

Tomorrow I think I would be safe to put the king back into the community avary...but will hold back for a few more days, just to be on the safe side.