Company aids farmers in pest control

By Stephani Duff

editorial@tdnpublishing.com

Weather con­di­tions such as droughts or early sea­son frosts are not the only fac­tor farm­ers need to be con­cerned with when it comes to their crops, food stor­age, and live­stock. Nui­sance ani­mals are quickly becom­ing a large, and at times, dif­fi­cult to fix prob­lem; they are such an increas­ing prob­lem, in fact, that Jacob and Melissa Barnes will be cel­e­brat­ing their one year anniver­sary this Jan­u­ary of their south­west Ohio com­pany Barnes Wildlife Control.

Recently Melissa broke down the three largest nui­sance ani­mal threats. “The three largest nui­sance ani­mals that we get calls about are rats, coy­otes, and rac­coons,” said Melissa, “and there are dif­fer­ent options for thwart­ing these par­tic­u­lar animals.”

Accord­ing to Melissa rats, or mice, are a big threat to crops as they stand in the field as well as once they are cut down at har­vest. “Rats and mice will eat on the crops as they stand in the field and then after har­vest time, they will seek other food sources in indoor stor­age which leads to con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of food and loss of food in general.”

Melissa and Jacob inform their cus­tomers call­ing about rats or mice that they can take the first step in alle­vi­at­ing some of the prob­lems; “We encour­age cus­tomers to look around the area before we do any­thing – if you allow access to crops, feed, or barn and never close off entrances, you will never rid your­self of the prob­lem.” Along with feed and barn issues, rats and mice are heav­ily attracted to elec­tri­cal wiring. Accord­ing to Melissa the rats will “chew through the insu­la­tion of the wiring and they also build nests by the fuse boxes which is a poten­tial fire hazard.”

Once you check the entrance areas there are a cou­ple options for rid­ding your farm area of mice and rats. Putting out poi­son bait is often effec­tive because mice and rats are one of the only ani­mals you can poi­son, but the prob­lem with that is they don’t always die on site which leads to car­cass issues. Melissa also sug­gested live traps and the reg­u­lar mice traps most peo­ple use in their homes; she encour­ages cus­tomers to make sure the trap is designed for the spe­cific ani­mal you are try­ing to catch.

The sec­ond nui­sance ani­mal the Barnes’ usu­ally get calls about are coy­otes, “with coy­otes you are not look­ing at crop dam­age, per se, but you will have loss of live­stock, most gen­er­ally younger live­stock,” explained Melissa, “Ani­mals that are stalled do not typ­i­cally face the dan­ger of a coy­ote like ani­mals out in pas­tures do.” Coy­otes are a strong threat to farm­ers and their live­stock because there are approx­i­mately 2,000 coy­otes per ten square miles in this area.

Melissa explained the process of catch­ing coy­otes recently, “Coy­otes are more dif­fi­cult to catch and get rid of espe­cially since there is no nat­ural preda­tor to hunt coy­otes – they are at the top of the food chain.” Melissa sug­gested live traps, foothold traps, or snares to keep live­stock safe.

“Snares are the most effec­tive way to deal with a coy­ote prob­lem,” explained Melissa. “And the best place to put these traps is along a wooded area or tree lines where coy­otes would pass through to get to the livestock.”

The third nui­sance ani­mal that the Barnes’ get com­plaints about is the rac­coon; “These crea­tures are extremely destruc­tive to crops in the field, stored barn crops, and per­sonal gar­dens. They are also quite smart ani­mals so you have to be crafty to trap them,” said Melissa. The most pop­u­lar way to catch a rac­coon is a life trap, but the catch is that, in Ohio, it is ille­gal to relo­cate trapped rac­coons because they will come right back to your farm. “Because of this,” explained Melissa, “there are two options; you can release the rac­coon on site, which doesn’t fix the prob­lem, or unfor­tu­nately, you have to euth­a­nize them.”

Although these three nui­sance ani­mals are the most com­mon, there are other ani­mals that cause issues to farm­ers, their live­stock, and their crops – foxes, ground­hogs, skunks, and pos­sums are known to cause issues on farms, as well.

Barnes Wildlife Con­trol works closely with the Miami County Game War­den and the Miami County Sheriff’s Office. The Barnes’ have been suc­cess­fully run­ning their busi­ness for a year come Jan­u­ary of 2013 and Melissa explained that, in order to rid areas of nui­sance ani­mals, a Nui­sance Wildlife Per­mit is required.

If nui­sance ani­mals are caus­ing a prob­lem for your farm or farms near you Melissa and Jacob can be reached at www.barneswildlifecontrol.com or at (937) 340 1867.

(Stephani Duff is a writer for the Troy Daily News.)

Posted by Tina Murdock on Jan 10 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.