The holidays are about being with family and friends and appreciating your relationships and each other. Normally, all of these great holiday memories happen in your home or a relative's. Last month, we focused on the many types of rodents that can infest your home and what you can do to prevent that from happening and control methods for treating if you have already seen signs of rodents. As we get closer to the holidays and the weather turns colder, your home is more at risk at being seen as a safe and warm haven for these homeless rodents.

Rodent pests can cause considerable damage to your home while contributing to the unsanitary aspect of it. Especially in households with children who are more susceptible to illness.

Enjoy your time with family and friends this holiday season by making sure your home is rodent-proof and rodent-free.

Rats

The general types of these rodents that exist in your home can include the Norway rat, the roof (or black) rat and the house mouse. Roof rats usually stake out attics or cabinets and can climb quite well. Norway rats choose to live in the ground by digging burrows against foundations, tree trunks, and gardens. Their burrows can lead into crawl spaces and small openings around pipes which can enable them to inhabit your kitchens and bathrooms.

No matter the type of rat that lives in your home, you can be sure that it will be attracted to any food item you have in your pantry, especially high-quality food products such as meat and fresh grain. If you have pets, be extra cautious about foods being left out, because rats will smell and detect dog food that is sitting out.

Rats need one-half to one fluid ounce of water everyday when consuming dry foods. They have extremely sharp senses of taste, hearing, and smell. Once they are aware of what is within their reach and given their keen senses, rats will do anything to get to food or shelter. Overall, rats are able to enter a building through openings that are wider than half an inch across. Rats have a very short life span -- most die within a year. However, rats can breed rapidly, so even though they die off quickly, their young will survive them. Female rats produce five or six litters of about half a dozen to a dozen young each year.

Now that you know a little about the rat's habits, how can you tell that you have Rats living alongside you in your home? Spotting droppings or visible signs of fresh gnawing should be an obvious indicator of rats. Rat tracks can appear on dusty surfaces or mud. Rats usually build runways and burrows to get into your home and they can be found next to buildings and under debris and low vegetation.

Rat Exclusion

Here are some simple rules of thumb you can adopt to prevent a rodent invasion in your home:

• Store all your accessible food in rodent-proof containers such as glass or metal

• Place your trash in tightly covered metal cans to prevent smells from escaping or potential rodent entry.

• Check your faucets to make sure they are functioning properly and to fix leaks as they occur, since gaps or holes around pipes can serve as easy entry points for rodents.

• Seal up any unnecessary openings with concrete or sheet metal. For other access points, a 1/4 inch hardware cloth or steel wool should do the trick.

• For pet owners, put any uneaten pet food away before you go to bed, as any pet food left out is subject to rodent consumption!

• Carefully watch your bird feeders. Be sure you are not feeding the local rodent population instead of desirable song birds!

Squirrels

Most people are familiar with squirrels and some may even find this particular rodent to be cute and charming. Gray squirrels are small rodents found throughout Texas.

Squirrel Control

Trapping

Traps are often effective where there is a small population of gray squirrels or in urban areas where a toxicant cannot be used safely. Small cage traps are available from feed stores, sporting goods stores and many garden supply centers. Traps should be baited with grain or oats and placed near the entrance to the burrow. Rat traps are also an effective way to catch smaller gray squirrels. The traps should be baited and placed near the burrow entrance.

Traps with an expanded trigger can be placed in the squirrel’s travel path. Set this way, the trap does not have to be baited. The animal will step on the trigger as it moves along the path.

Identifying the rodent you may have in your house and utilizing appropriate control methods is key to keeping your home clean and ready for the holidays.

Author Resource:-> Fran Phalin is a freelance editor and writer specializing in home improvement topics. She is based in Austin, TX.

For pest control services on any rodent, whether you need assistance in preventing them or need a pest control professional to control and trap rodents for you, please visit Anteater Pest and Lawn at: www.goanteater.com.

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There are really 2 basic approaches to keeping squirrels out of your bird feeder. The first is to simply try to block them from getting to the feeder. There are two common types of feeders that do that.

Baffled Bird Feeder - By simply restricting access to the the food in the feeder, you frustrate them and they move off. The advantage to using a baffle is that it more or less separates the squirrel proof barrier from the feeder itself, so that the bird have free access to the bird seed, and any size bird can still use the feeder. This is often the more aesthetic approach. This is often done by pole mounting the feeder, and putting the baffle on the pole. Other types use a hanging arrangement and the baffle forms a roof over the feeder.

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The disadvantage of this approach is that squirrels can leap large distances, and are incredibly agile climbers, so that they will often find a way to land on the actual feeder and bypass the baffling. With the top mounted feeder you may also find a squirrel smart enough to climb down and cause the feeder to swing, and while they may not gain access to the feeder itself they can cause the bird food to spill to the ground, where they can get all the food they want.

Caged Bird Feeders - Another very common solution is to use a caged feeder. These are easy to spot, the construction includes some type of cage around the actual feeder area. It's a fairly open mesh, and in fact a tube style caged feeder looks similar to an electronic bug zapper with the open mesh surrounding the tube.

Caged feeders are better at keeping the squirrels out of the feeder, but they can still get to it and scare off the birds that are trying to use the feeder. This is often the case when you are trying to attract smaller birds.

The second approach to getting rid of squirrels in your bird feeder is to move them out. The much more effective types of squirrel proof feeders are those that cause the squirrel to fall off or be thrown from the feeder. There are two types of those feeders as well, weight activated feeders and the battery powered or electronic motorized feeders. While this won't harm the squirrels they are fun to watch in action...

You can learn more about these feeders and see videos of these squirrel proof bird feeders in action at http://www.birdfeederz.com This includes the motorized Droll Yankees squirrel proof birdfeeders as well.

By J Ruppel

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http://EzineArticles.com/?Squirrel-Proof-Bird-Feeders---Ways-to-Get-Rid-of-Squirrels-in-Your-Feeder&id=788210

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How to Control the Grey Squirrel Population

Squirrels have three of four litters per year, with each litter producing an average three infants. They reach maturity in approximately 10 months and their average life span is 2 years.

Grey squirrels are part granivore and part omnivore. Common vegetation eaten by the grey squirrel includes acorns, flowers, tree shoots, nuts etc. aswell as fruits, roots and cereals. They also cause damage to trees by stripping off the bark and feeds off the sappy tissue beneath. Occasionally grey squirrels will feed on insects and bird eggs and they eat approximately 50 grams a day.

Control

The grey squirrel is a serious pest problem and control is necessary. They cause damage to trees by stripping the bark off them. They damage parks and gardens (by eating away at flower beds etc), and in urban areas they are often found damaging roof timbers, electrical wiring and plumbing after gaining access to the loft spaces.

Control methods include shooting, trapping by using cages and spring traps or the use of poisons. The use of poisons is strictly by professional use only and licenses are required under the Grey Squirrel (Warfarin) Order 1973.

Squirrel cage traps and squirrel traps designed to kill on impact are somewhat easy to set. Single or multi catch cage traps are readily available for grey squirrels. When using the single cage traps outdoors, one unit should be effective for up to one hectare, and spaced around 100 metres apart from another. If using a multi-catch cage trap, one unit is suitable for three hectares and should be spaced 200 metres apart.

The best position for cage traps is under trees which are known to be used by the pest or in hedges. Ideally the ground should be clear of vegetation,

Pre-baiting of the cage traps is essential to the successfulness of the programme. Maize is a good attractant and it should be placed inside the trap for five continuous days. The trap needs to be visited twice a day and users should expect immediate success after a couple of days of pre-baiting. Cages can also be used in roof spaces etc in the same manner.

Once grey squirrels are caught in cages, they should be immediately humanely destroyed. One method is by running the squirrel into a sack and striking it with a sharp blow to the head.

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If you are suffering from a squirrel nuisances why not try squirrel traps available from PPC Supplies.

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