Rat Poisons
Rat poisons is a substance that gets as much attention for the other things it poisons as it does for its ability to kill rats. A recent nationwide recall of dog food and cat food was triggered by a finding of rat poison in the products, but not after a number of pets became ill or died. The pet food rat poison recall yet again re-invigorated a national debate on where the line is in products that we used to control pest and vermin – how far can we go before the danger of the cure being worse that the disease becomes a reality?
About Rat Poison
Rats are a fact of life – in many large cities, they say you’re never more than three feet from one – and most people don’t like them one bit. A rat infestation can be a major problem, because they bring with them disease. So, rat populations need to be controlled, but rats are very resilient creatures. The poison used to kill them doesn’t know it is only supposed to kill rats, and to be strong enough to kill them, it has to be strong enough to kill a lot of other things – of instance, many rat poisons are made with arsenic, and very high levels of it. For this reason, many kinds of rat poisons are banned in the US.
How Does Rat Poison Work?
Rat poison works through the blood to shut down the nervous system. As such, the symptoms of rat poison ingestion are not stomach upset and vomiting, as you might expect. Instead, they can be hard to spot things like fatigue and a cough. That is why the rat poison in pet food problem was so serious – people did not realize their pets were sick until it was too late. The effect of rat poison being ingested by an animal or a human, however, is almost always death. There is no rat poison antidote to turn to.
Buying Rat Poison
Rat poison can be difficult to buy, and so you will need to research online to find a kind of poison you can use. Rat poison ingredients differ across brands, such as Decon rat poison. Rat poison labels will give you more information about what you are buying. The control of rat poison purchases is pretty tight, and the poison can be expensive, so get a few rat poison quotes before buying. Before bringing rat poison into your home, make sure you understand everything, even the color of rat poisons, before you start using it.
