Facts about Rats
Rat Control Information
Are you experiencing Rat infestations at your home or business? This requires a solution that eliminates Rats from your home and prevents them from returning. Pest Managers have a variety of methods available for controlling the spread of rats in Cape Town. Pest Managers can assist with all types of Rat Control in Cape Town.
Facts about Rats
What are rats and how do they behave?
Rats are well known for their appearance, but let’s take a closer look at where they live, how they choose a habitat, and what they eat.
Rats are medium-sized rodents that originated in Asia and Australia and are found throughout the world. According to Wikipedia, there are 56 species of rats listed in the world.
Rats can range from small being about 120mm in length to a truly frightening version that’s about the size of a large domestic cat. This version can weigh 2kg or more.
What does a rat need to survive?
In short, very little.
The fact that rats live everywhere makes them a challenging pest to control. Rats basically need three things to survive and reproduce.
Food
As omnivores, rats will consume any food they encounter. There are rats that kill small animals such as baby birds and lizards for food, although they are generally known for scavenging through trash and eating food left out.
Water
Without direct access to water, rats can survive for a month or more. The reason for this is that they consume enough water through their diet. Rats have access to plenty of water in the surrounding areas. Rats can survive from condensation, small puddles, dew and pet water to name a few.
Shelter
Rats find shelter from weeds, grasses, and other plants in the wild. It is common for rats to make their homes under furniture, behind walls, or in dark, seldom-used corners of a home.
Additionally, they are known for making nests inside and under appliances.
Rat Reproduction
A rat’s nest is constructed from any material that can be foraged from the area, such as branches, grass, trash, and paper, before its offspring are born. Nests are usually constructed in crevices, in decaying trees, or in buildings.
Rats tend to produce large numbers of babies. A female rat can mate up to 500 times within six hours, and a brown rat can produce up to 2,000 offspring a year. An individual brown rat may have up to 22 young at one time, but the average number of young is between eight and nine.
A baby weighing only 6 to 8 grams is born after a gestation period of 21 to 26 days. Brown rats are capable of reproducing by the age of three months. The average lifespan of a rat is two or three years. Many house rats – 91 to 97 percent – die during their first year of life.
Rats & Disease
Increasing rat populations also increases your risk of contracting rodent-borne diseases. It is well known that rats carry a variety of dangerous diseases. Recently, it has been proven that they are carriers of Hepatitis E, and that they can transmit the disease to others. There are many of them who carry the disease typhus.
This disease is caused by a bacteria called Rickettsia typhi and is spread by fleas. People become infected with flea-borne typhus when they encounter infected fleas. A flea becomes infected when it bites an animal that is infected, such as a rat, cat, or opossum. Infected fleas bite people and animals, causing wounds as they break the skin. Poop is produced by fleas when they feed. As a result, the poop (also known as flea dirt) can be rubbed onto the bite wound or other wounds, resulting in infection. In addition, infected flea dirt can also be breathed in by people or rubbed into their eyes.
Get in touch with a professional rat control company
Rat infestations can be prevented by implimenting basic pest control steps. Read the pages on Rat control for a better understanding.
For Professional Rat Control in Cape Town contact Pest Managers.
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