Historic, Archive Document Do not assume content reflects current scientific knowledge, policies, or practices. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE OFFICE OF INFORMATION ' PRESS SERVICE Picture Story No. 46 Release - February 1^, 1948 NATION-WIDE RAT CONTROL. • CAMPAIGN . -y; LAUNCHED BY FARMERS AND GOVERNMENT The United States Government is spearheading a coast-to-coast- campaign by fanners against rats. A hungry world, the leaders of the campaign say, can not afford an estimated 200,000, 000-bushel loss in grains eaten or spoiled by rats every year. Biologists of the Department of Interior's Fish and Wild Life Service are demonstrating scientific methods of rat control. County agricultur- al agents of the Department of Agriculture's Extension Service are organizing the farmers in each community enrolling in the campaign. (NOTE TO EDITOR: If this campaign already is well along in your State, details on it may be obtained from your State Extension Service. ) One or two farmers alone can hope to accomplish very little in driving rats from their premises, the biologists say, but all the farmers in a community, banded together in a common cause, can accomplish a great deal. Using up-to-date poisoning and trapping measures, ratproofing buildings where grain is stored or fed to livestock or poultry, and eliminating good" hiding places will cut down the rat population in any area. Persistent use of these approved control meas- ures will go far toward eradicating this costly pest from that area. The rat population of the United States is thought to be about the same as the human population, with three-fourths of the rodents living on our farms. Practically every farm harbors some rats, the biologists say. But because this rodent is a creature of a shadow world, usually coming out after food only at night, its presence in large numbers may go unsuspected for some time. It breeds very fast, a female bearing from 6 to 22 in a litter, as many as 6 times a year. Starting the campaign early in the year makes it possible to attack rats before they spread very far from their winter quarters in and near farm build- ings. The accompanying pictures show some of the measures now being put into effect to destroy as many rats as possible on American farms within the next few months. Picture Story No. 46 (February 15, 1948 - NATION-WIDE RAT CONTROL CAMPAIGN ) (EDITORS AND WRITERS: You may obtain 8x10 glossy prints of any of the pictures here shown free on request to the Press Service, Office of Information, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington 25, D.C.) (1) The rat is a filthy, destructive, sly, and, when cornered, ferocious little creature. (2) It thrives on garbage '. . (3) And on stored grain too. Bags of grain stacked on the floor offer the rat a good hiding place, as well as a supply of food 1 ' (4) Stacking the bags of grain on a rack well .abcve the floor makes it more difficult for the rat to reach the grain (5) Rats can't gnaw their way through a door protected by a-'V. metal strip (6) Nor through a vent protected by a me.tal hardware cloth screens (7) A 'rat-prtofed door keeps rats' out of the poultry house (8) Many rats live in burrows dug down beside a barn or other farm building (9) Dusting a burrow with calcium cyanide kills the whole rat family living there • (10) A-trap set over a path used by a rat , (11) Will catch and kill the next one to pass that way (12) Rat poison set out along a rat run (13) Will dispose of others.