Control of Rodents and Insects

Rats – rats cause great damage to cables and electricity wires in the Visitors Pavilion and the offices. To keep them away we use an electronic ultrasonic system that produces beeps at radio frequency. When the rat hears the beeps it runs away. Likewise, we have installed breeding boxes for barn owls near the Visitors Pavilion and offices; the barn owls breed in these boxes and hunt the rats that wander around outside the buildings at night. In addition we seal the buildings and keep sources of waste away from them.

Flies, mosquitoes and other flying insects – We try to spray for flies at a low frequency of once a week, during the summer and autumn only. We use edible bait with sugar syrup that is sprayed at certain locations and attracts flies. In the goat pen, where there are large amounts of flies, we also use biological control with a parasitic wasp to moderate the increase in fly numbers. We spray for mosquitoes minimally, spraying in a localised way, mainly before functions, using the warm fog method. We spray for cockroaches once a year in channels and wastewater ponds.