LEARNING MATERIAL
INC.
DURAN FARM AGRIBUSINESS AND TRAINING
AGRICULTURAL CROP PRODUCTION III
INTEGRATED
PEST
MANAGEMENT
(RAT)
Objectives and Topics
I. Describe the characteristics of field rats
A. Poor vision but sensitive to motion
B. Sensitive sense of smell, taste, touch, and
hearing.
C. Nocturnal – active by night
D. Good climbers
E. Good swimmers
F. Can jump fairly high.
G. Has chisel-like teeth/incisors
H. Continually chews to sharpen their teeth.
I. Has long whiskers and guard tails to guide
them when they travel.
J. Engages in cannibalism when food is scarce.
K. Exhibits temporary fear when there is a
change in an otherwise familiar condition,
protecting them from consequences of
curiosity
L. High reproductive potentials; few males can
mate with almost all the females in the area.
II. List the food preference and feeding habits
of field rats.
A. Primary foods are rice, green corn, and other
grains.
B. Secondary foods are cassava, coconut,
sugarcane, shelled corn, etc.
C. Also feeds on insects, snails, dried fish, fowl
and weaker members of the group when
food is scarce.
III. Describe the burrows and harborage
preferred by field rats.
A. Typical burrows have a principal entrance
with one or more exits.
B. 1-5 ft long, and curves underground to as
deep as 2 ft.
C. With sections for storing food and delivery; it
also has a section for giving birth.
IV. Describe the life cycle of field rats
A. Rats can live up to 3-4 years in the laboratory
but the average lifespan is from six months
to more than one year in field conditions.
B. Pregnancy lasts for 3 weeks.
C. A female rat produces a litter up to 21 pups
(average of 6- 8 pups) and can give birth 3-4
times a year.
D. Pups are born blind and helpless up to 21
days.
E. Pups grow rapidly and are ready to
breed at 6 weeks of age.
F. A pair of rats with their offspring can
produces more than 500 rats in one
year if food and other conditions are
favorable.
V. Describe the symptoms/damage caused by
field rats.
A. Missing germinated plants.
B. Missing hills.
C. Chopped young seedlings.
D. Irregular cutting of stem.
E. Chewed developing buds or ripening grains.
F. Tillers cut near the base of a 45º angle.
G. Retillering of stems.
H. Delayed grain maturity.
I. Missing grains or panicles
VI. Enumerate the control methods in
effective field rat management.
A. Cultural methods
1. Practice proper sanitation by
removing weeds and straw piles in
the paddies.
2. Practice synchronous planting.
3. Minimize size of levees to 15 cm wide
x 20 cm high to avoid rat burrows.
B. Physical/Mechanical Methods
1. Trapping – sometimes practiced to capture
rats that have caused localized damage in the
field.
2. Destroying burrows – Rats are killed with men
armed with sticks, usually done in the
absence of crops to minimize the places
where rats can escape or hide.
3. Use of flame throwers – attack rat burrows
with torches or flame throwers. The nozzle
with flame is placed into the opening of one
rat burrow while other burrows are closed to
suffocate the rats.
B. Physical/Mechanical Methods
4. Blanketing method – a group of men
surround the rats’ hiding places, forcing
them to come out and eventually clubbing
them to death.
5. Rat proofing – the utilization of concrete
walls, floors and rat proof doors in
warehouses.
6. Trap barrier system (TBS).
a. Using the TBS. For every 10 hectares
contiguous rice area.
a.1 Plant rice in a 20 x 20 m area one
month before the normal planting
time.
a.2 Use aromatic or good eating quality
rice variety as bait.
a.3 Fence the area with 24.5 inch high
plastic sheets (similar to the material
used to cover books).
a.4 Use bamboo stakes to erect the
plastic material. The stakes
should be inside the plastic fence.
a.5 The trap is made of metal screen
wire (rectangular in shape), having
a cone- shaped inclined entrance
tunnel narrowing to the end with
bent metal wire. Rats are caught
in the traps while trying to enter the
trap barrier system.
b. Advantages of the TBS
b.1 Environment-friendly and relatively a low-cost
technology.
b.2 The TBS capitalizes on the rat’s behavior of entering
holes and running along sides of the rice paddy
in search of food.
b.3 TBS is more effective when adopted as a
community wide action to control rats.
b.4 Rat control using TBS should start at the seedbed to
protect the seedlings.
b.5 Requires P2700* (P1900 for plastic, P600 for four rat
traps and P200 for labor) to control rats in a 10 ha
rice field.
*subject to change
C. Chemical Methods
1. Acute rodenticide is a quick acting
poison, a single dose is enough to
cause death. Death occurs shortly after
ingestion.
2. Chronic rodenticide is a slow acting
poison, requiring multiple dose
feeding, resulting to death from
internal bleeding.
VII. Describe the procedures in baiting.
A. Apply acute rodenticides in areas
where pre-baiting was unsuccessful to
avoid the establishment of a new rat
population in the same area.
B. Two weeks after transplanting, install 5
initial baiting stations per hectare. Place
chronic baits in the baiting stations to
further reduce the remaining 30%
population.
C. Use locally available materials such
as bamboo, oil cans, coconut husks, etc
as bait holders.
D. Mix 1 kg of rodenticide with 19 kg of
milled or broken rice.
E. Deposit 6 tbsp of mixed bait per baiting
station.
F. Place baiting stations along rats’
breeding places, such as irrigation, dikes,
uncultivated areas in addition to those
placed along rice fields.
G. Inspect all baiting station every day and
replace consumed baits.
H. For every station visited by the rats, add
1-2 baiting stations 10 meters apart
from the original baiting station.
I. Increase the amount of mixed baits to 8
tbsp per baiting station. Replace spoiled
baits with new ones.
J. Before harvest time, collect all baits.
Clean, repair and keep them for the next
cropping season.
1. Pre-baiting. Distribute the baits
(without the poison) 3-5 days prior to
massive acute baiting to familiarize the
rats with the bait before the toxic bait
is used. This is also used to minimize
bait shyness. This should be done
before seeding and before transplanting
to target the rats that attack the
seedbed.
2. Bait shyness – The reduction in the
effectiveness of acute poisons after
repeated use in the same locality or
area when more and more rats realize
the sub-lethal effects of the poison.
