Dealing With the 2021 Australian Mice Plague

Five ways to deal with the mouse plague in NSW and Queensland

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know about the mouse plague currently raging across eastern Australia, with areas of New South Wales and southern Queensland among the worst affected.

While this event may seem almost biblical in its scale and nature, experts say that mouse plagues are fairly common occurrences, happening every five to ten years. This year’s plague stems from the ending of a drought that has been ongoing for the past few years; after a run of dry years, the rain has changed environmental conditions, and mice have taken notice of that, causing them to breed at rates far higher than usual. The rain has also given farmers a good crop, meaning there plenty of food to sustain this new population boom.

The signs of a mouse infestation are easy: droppings, odours, and signs of burrowing or gnawing. The solutions to an infestation? Not so easy. Fingers crossed that you haven’t found any dead mice raining down on you from the sky yet.

Despite the unhappy situation, however, there’s still light at the end of the tunnel. Here are five tips from Farmbuy.com on how to tackle the impacts of the mice plague on your farm or rural property without losing your head.

1. Get your grain treated

With mice running amok across the country, it might seem that this year’s harvest is beyond salvation. Mice are not only eating their way through unharvested crops, but also making themselves at home in grain silos, with deleterious effects on health and sanitation.

In an effort to deal with the plague, the NSW government has promised $50 million in funding to combat its worst effects. Eight grain treatment stations will be set up across NSW, where farmers can show up and bring their grain to be treated, free of charge, with no paperwork required.

This initiative aims to combat the economic and agricultural devastation caused by the mice on the summer harvests and save some of the crops from being discarded entirely.

2. Try the new rodent poison

This past Thursday, May 13th, the NSW government has requested the federal government to permit the agricultural use of bromadiolone, an extremely effective rodent poison often used in household baits but banned for large-scale agricultural use.

If approved, farmers will be able to purchase the poison and use it to curb population growth of the mice, as the anti-coagulants in the poisons will kill mice within 24 hours of ingesting. This would be the first wide-scale use of such an effective poison since it was banned.

Veterinarians have raised the concern that bromadiolone, unlike zinc nitrates and zinc phosphides, stay in the mice after death. This means that if other animals eat the mice, they are likely to be affected – and possibly killed, if too much is eaten – by the poison.

If you choose to buy and use this poison, if and when it’s approved by the federal government, be sure to keep the dead mice well away from your domestic animals and your livestock. Alternatively, federal approval has been granted for double-strength zinc phosphide, so that’s available for purchase, too.

3. Apply for rebates

Though it may be disappointing that the government isn’t offering the $25,000 rebate for all farmers affected by the plague, it is still possible to have some of your financial troubles alleviated.

The NSW government has recently promised rebates of $500 and $1,000 for eligible households and small businesses for the purchase of bait. This offer applies to both town and farm residents affected by the plague. You can apply through Service NSW.

4. Take care of your health

While there has only been one reported case of a serious mouse-related illness, the existence of this case is a testament to how the mouse plague can affect farmers’ health. It has the potential to be as much a public health crisis as it as an economic and agricultural crisis.

Symptoms of lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM) include feeling sore and having red eyes. Another illness transferred by mice to humans, but not directly caused by mice, is leptospirosis, a type of bacterial blood infection. It’s more commonly called “rat fever” or “field fever.”

Symptoms of this illness can range from mild headaches and fevers to severe internal bleeding and meningitis. If you’re feeling under the weather in any way, keep track of your symptoms, inform someone in your household, and rest up. Make sure to go to the hospital if symptoms get more serious.

5. Long-term protection and staying patient

There is no “silver bullet” that can end the plague, as ideal as that would be. No amount of deadly poison can make every mouse disappear overnight, and while we know a population crash will be what ends the plague, there’s no way to predict when this will occur.

There is good news for farmers, however. As rainfall increases, and we move into winter, there is a possibility that mice will drown in their holes. Methods such as sub-lethal baiting can also be used to prevent mice from nibbling away at the seeds planted for the winter crop. Baiting from six weeks out before sowing, and then baiting as you sow, is an effective way of keeping mice out of your fields through a “dodgy curry effect.”

Other long-term remedies would include checking for any cracks or openings in dwellings, outbuildings, silos and the like (mice can get into anything as long as there’s a hole the width of a pencil) and filling them in consistently, as well as sealing the bottoms of external doors and placing vents over flues and chimneys. It might not do much now, but it could decrease the number of mice entering your home or your shed, even marginally.

Lastly, we know how hard it’s been. Staying patient and waiting for the end of the plague is much, much easier said than done. But there’s no way out of this crisis apart from just ploughing through it, so keep your chin up, ask for help from the government when you need it, and things are sure to look up soon. 

From all of us here at Farmbuy, good luck.