HOW TO DESTROY RATS. 



9 



Eats find abimdaiit food in country slaughterhouses ; reform in the 

 management of these is badly needed. Such places are centers of 

 rat propagation. It is a common practice to leave offal of slaught- 

 ered animals to be eaten by rats and swine, and this is the chief means 

 of perpetuating trichina} in pork. The law should require offal to 

 be promptly cremated or otherwise disposed of. Country slaughter- 

 "houses should be as cleanly as constantly inspected abattoirs. 



Another important source of rat food is the remnants of lunches 

 left by employees in factories, stores, and -public buildings. This 

 food, which alone is sufficient to attract and sustain a small army of 

 rats, is commonly left in waste baskets or other open receptacles. 

 Strictly enforced rules requiring all remnants of food to be deposited 

 in coveied metal vessels would make trapping far more effective. 



If buildings are infested with rats, wire-screened compartments 

 should be used for storing food. Many merchants now keep flour, 

 seeds, meats, and the like in wire cages, and the practice should be 

 general. Ice boxes and cold-storage rooms may be made proof 

 against rats by an outer covering of heavy wire netting of half-inch 

 mesh. Steamboat companies engaged in carrying high-priced south- 

 ern produce to northern markets can, at small expense, protect the 

 vegetables or fruits in screened compartments on both docks and 

 vessels. 



Rats do not gnaw the plane surfaces of hard materials, such as 

 wood. They attack doors, furniture, and boxes at the angles only. 

 This fact suggests the feasibility of protecting chests containing food 

 by light coverings of metal along the salient angles. This plan has 

 for years been in use to protect naval stores on ships and in ware- 

 houses. 



NATURAL ENEMIES OF RATS. 



Among the natural enemies of rats are the larger hawks and owls, 

 skunks, foxes, coyotes, weasels, minks, dogs, cats, and ferrets. 



Probably the greatest factor in the increase of rats, mice, and 

 other destructive rodents in the United States has been the per- 

 sistent killing off of the birds and mammals that prey upon them. 

 Animals that on the whole are decidedly beneficial, since they subsist 

 upon harmful insects and rodents, are habitually destroyed by some 

 farmers and sportsmen because they occasionally kill a chicken or 

 a game bird. 



The value of carnivorous mammals and the larger birds of prey 

 in destroying rats should be more fully recognized, especially by 

 the farmer and the game preserver. Rats actually destroy more 

 poultry and game, both eggs and young chicks, than all the birds and 

 wild mammals combined ; yet some of our most useful birds of prey 

 3566— Bull. 369—09 2 



