Pest animals

Planning your pest animal control

Don't I just kill them?

It's important to take some time before you start pest control to think about why you are doing it and what your desired outcomes are. The answers to these questions will drive what scale of project you tackle and what species you target. You'll also need to decide when you are going to undertake pest control and what method to use.

Things to consider

• Do you need year round control or just protection during bird breeding seasons?
• Can you service traps or refill bait stations regularly enough?
• Do you want to use toxins or traps?
• How will you dispose of carcasses?
• If you use toxins - are pets at risk from direct exposure or from eating carcasses?
• If I control this pest, what will happen to the numbers of other pests?
• Have you actually got enough time or commitment to keep the project going?

Continuity is very important in pest control and if control is not undertaken regularly enough then the pests will recover and all your hard work will be undone.

If you have any questions on your project or would like us to help with a project plan please contact us on 09 366 2000 or 0800 80 60 40 (outside of the free calling area).

Other tips

• Talk to your neighbours and see if they want to help too - you can achieve a lot more by combining efforts across a group of properties and reducing the amount of reinvasion that will occur.
• Am I succeeding? Schedule in time for monitoring so that you know if your efforts are being effective. Rat monitoring is easy and only involves a few hours effort per year.

Try using our handy templates to get you started: