All posts in “ground squirrels”

Snakes

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Snakes

The snakes are out and now is the time to watch where you step or put your hands. We put out a lot of rodent stations, black in color and the snakes love the heat and protection. They also occasionally get a treat when a mouse or rat stumbles in. So lets imagine that you’ve seen some rat feces or maybe a rat. Why should you be concerned? Not only will they try to get into your home but they carry diseases and parasites like ticks. Most of us have pets, like cats and dogs and rats can cause real issues even biting our pets. So with rats comes snakes, when rats are plentiful in a neighborhood snakes are often found. The snake below was found at a customers home near the pool area, can you only imagine what might happen?

So be aware of your property, if you see rodents call ProBest. If your unsure about any holes or openings – call ProBest? Play it safe and call the Number 1 Pest Control Company in Gilbert, Arizona. We are here to help you design a safe and pest free home. Home sealing is another measure to ensure that rodents and pest don’t enter your home. We will come out and inspect your home and come up with a plan to seal it up, including all holes and entry points. Over the years molding and caulking fails and allows wildlife and pests attempt to enter. Sealing is a BIG help.

Reduce Clutter
Pick up fruit that has fallen
Reduce or get rid of weeds
Check your property frequently look up and down
If you have a shed check it from time to time.
Fix leaks

BurrowRX underground rodents

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BurrowRx underground rodents

BurrowRx underground rodents. Do you have underground rodents (rats and mice), ground squirrels, pocket gophers, gophers, moles or pack rats? We have the solution to their constant burrowing, damaging of plants and holes which people and kids can fall into. Another issue that can occur is that these rodents are prey to rattlesnakes and other more harmful creatures. If they are present it may encourage snakes to wonder into and on your property.

The BurrowRx Rodent Control Device

The BurrowRx Rodent Control Device is classified as a pesticidal device. Secondary kills of nontarget species is not likely when used as directed. When the Carbon Monoxide dissipates there’s no longer a risk to anything entering the burrow system. It uses a smoke tracer to let you know where the carbon monoxide is going. It’s your prescription for any burrowing rodent problem. Carbon Monoxide can be used as an effective approach to control of burrowing rodents. As the Carbon Monoxide enters the burrow system, the rodent breathes it in. The Carbon Monoxide then replaces the oxygen in their blood. And without oxygen, cells in the body die and organs stop working.

Customers with pets love the BurrowRx underground rodents because there is no worry about primary poisoning by digging up poisonous bait, or secondary poisoning from gophers that have previously taken poisoned bait. Data efficacy is very effective at 95% at controlling borrowing ground squirrels.

Direct targeting of rodents within the burrow system.
No reliance on bait acceptance that sometimes hinders rodenticide and trapping efforts.
Our solution eliminates the worry about secondary or unintended kills.
It seldom requires handling of animals after treatment, which reduces the risk of disease and parasite transmittance to humans.
Allows you the customer to see that the technician and product is working.
Our commercial business approach is professional and builds customers’ confidence.
It can be highly efficacious.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFVX63irUH0[/embedyt]

Call ProBest Pest Management today to schedule your treatment – 602-249-7378

What are all those holes in my yard?

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There are a number of things that can dig up those yards. Out here in the Wild West we can have all sorts of critters digging up the yards. Wild pigs or Javelina use their noses to dig up roots, pocket gophers dig burrows and eat roots under the ground and numerous insects dig holes to bury other insects or arachnids as food for their young. By the way ignoring these holes may lead to bushes and trees dying or by being severely damaged.

So if you are getting holes or something damaging your yard it may well be the time to call in a Pest Management Professional or Wildlife Professional.

Is there Lyme Disease in Arizona? YES!

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According to CDC surveillance statistics, only 52 cases of Lyme disease have been reported in Arizona in the past 10 years. These statistics may be misleading. Reported cases reflect the “tip of the iceberg,” or only a fraction of the true cases. The CDC states there are approximately 30,000 reported cases of Lyme in the US, and acknowledges that it is under-reported by 10 fold. This means that there are a minimum of 200,000 cases in the US that meet the CDC standard of diagnosis.

There are over 25 species of ticks in Arizona that may carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, Tularemia, Babesia and tick fever, as well as Lyme disease. If the tick that bites you is infected, it can inject Lyme bacteria into your bloodstream within hours of attachment. The bacteria can also invade your brain and nervous system in less than 24 hours.

There is a Arizona Lyme Disease Association and is there an answer – YES. As with any wildlife issue, there will almost always be a bug problem. Wildlife can be cute and can also carry diseases and parasites. So why not prevent the issue without harming the wildlife. How is this possible you say? Brochure Tick Control

The mice or ground squirrels enter the box, feed on the non-toxic food and get a combing of fipronil on their fur. They can then carry this back to nest-mates and it absorbs into their skin, killing ticks or fleas that bite and suck their blood.

Here is another article “Lyme Disease in the U.S. is 10-times underreported.”

Certified Installers by State

Rodents aren’t just a problem in NYC, how about Arizona?

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“Harlem says rats to blame for telephone woes“, you may think they have their issues and yes they do but we also have issues with rodents. There was a issue a year or so ago where rabbits were chewing/gnawing on vehicle wiring and that can be a real headache if you need your car in a hurry.

The front incisors of rodents never stop growing, In fact, continuously growing front teeth is a trait shared by all rodents from the tiniest mouse to the largest rodent. Observing mice & rats who have nothing to gnaw upon, its been found that these incisors can grow up to five inches per year.
Rats have strong teeth that allow them to chew through glass, cinderblock, wire, aluminum and lead.
Rodents need to chew four to five hours each day just to keep their teeth gnawed down to the point that they are able to eat. If their teeth grow too long they will die of starvation.
There is a very high sodium content in electrical and cable wiring. This makes the wires taste good to the rodents, but can lead to wire failure & is a fire hazard. Check your home-owner’s insurance policies to see if it covers fire if it is a result of rodents chewing on wires.

Photo – Univar Environmental Solutions

Naked Mole Rats

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Naked Mole Rats from the World Wildlife Zoo

Before we get started I just wanted to be sure somebody was out there or did it all end yesterday according to the Mayan’s?

Beauty is in the “Eye of the Beholder”, some people like cats with no fur or dogs with too much fur and some of us think Naked Mole Rats are cute. I mean common they live in the ground, they eats roots and tubers and they share everything as a family. They live in Africa and are often called “Sand Puppies” and have two special characteristics a lack of pain sensation in its skin and a very low metabolism.

Here is Arizona we have Pocket Gophers and Ground Squirrels and either one can get carried away with digging up yards.

24/7/365 Termites on the Move!

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24/7/365 Termites on the Move!

Termites work everyday and they are only interested in finding wood (your home) sometimes they make mistakes and come up in the wrong place. The thing they have – is that they don’t ever give up. A few tips:

Don’t plant tress or bushes near the foundation of your home, don’t put mulch up near the foundation and don”t pile stone or rock up to the stucco.
The same applies to planters, putting a planter up next to the home will only encourage moist and pests.
Reduce water next to the foundation. Check your drip irrigation, if sprinklers are involved direct them away from the home.
Watch out for pests like rodents (ground squirrels, rats and pocket gophers) digging near the foundation.
If you add a concrete slab to your home – pretreat it.
If you must dig around the foundation notify your Pest Control company.
Store firewood away from the structure.
Inspections are good, very good.

Rattlesnakes and pest control

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Rattlesnakes and pest control

Rattlesnakes just come with the territory out here in the Wild, Wild West and we do occasionally run across one or two or more a year. I try my hardest to relocate them, it’s not their fault that they get into our yards. They are usually just looking for food (rodents, ground squirrels etc) and they get trapped into enclosures or pool areas. We have them in electrical or water meter boxes, pool or drop down embankments and sometimes even in garages. A word of caution – don’t try this on your own! This takes skills and equipment and a very steady hand.

So let’s talk about two of the most dangerous – rattlesnakes…

Mojave rattlesnake – probably the most dangerous rattlesnake, it’s venom is neurotoxic. Generally found in the southeast of Arizona and with the expansion of its territories we could encounter them more often.
Western Diamondback rattlesnake – one of the largest venomous snakes in the U.S. and rivals its cousin the eastern Diamondback rattlesnake. It tends to be very aggressive and is one of the most common snakes in the Southwest.

There is an excellent book by Carl Ernst “Venomous Reptiles of North America” which I suggest you read if interested in snakes. I keep this book handy to identify any snake I think are dangerous or venomous.

Eagle Scout project wages war against Ticks…

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Eagle Scout candidate on warpath against Lyme disease

Eagle Scout candidate Matt Aranow with a “tick tube.”

Courtesy By Eleanor Burke/Special to the Town Crier GateHouse News Service Posted Mar 21, 2012 @ 01:08 PM

Eagle Scout candidate and Lincoln-Sudbury High School senior Matt Aranow is on the warpath against Lyme disease in his hometown of Lincoln. This spring he will launch an educational blitz in town, and with the help of his troop, disperse some 600 “tick tubes” in the brushy areas near the town’s playing fields and at Drumlin Farm Audubon Center.

“The tick tubes are supposed to control the numbers of baby ticks in the spring,” explains Matt. “You soak cotton balls in an insecticide, put them inside a cardboard toilet paper core, lay a bunch of them in mouse habitat areas, and the mice take the cotton balls to make their nests. The tick larvae die when they contact the treated cotton.”

Black-legged ticks, often called “deer ticks,” transmit Lyme disease, but white-footed mice and chipmunks–not deer–are the most common source of the bacterial spirochete that causes the disease. As large exurban home lots encroach on and fragment forests, people visit the borderlands where backyards meet woods, prime habitat for the rodents that host the tiny tick larvae when they first hatch from eggs in spring. This first meal helps them survive to the next year when, as nymphs in the spring or as adults in the fall, they find and infect their second and third hosts—often larger mammals such as humans or their pets.

Lincoln’s geography typifies a perfect incubator for the rapid upsurge of Lyme disease seen in Massachusetts and the northeastern U.S. over the last decade. Suburban incursion into previously wooded areas is a major factor in the quadrupling of Lyme incidence in Massachusetts, from1158 to 4019 cases per 100,000 people between 2000 and 2009, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read the rest of the story on Matt Aranow.

Trivia question – I’ll send to who ever guesses correctly ($25 gift certificate) what my Eagle Scout Project was! Comment below…………

What’s worse rodents or snakes?

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What’s worse rodents or snakes?

I guess it all depends on your perspective, maybe you are not a fan of either one. Phobias get to all of us I think (recent article ProBest’s Blog Fear and Phobia’s) and from my earliest day spiders have not been a good thought. So which is worse – I think either could be but at least generally speaking snakes can kill you. I’m going to rank snakes higher on my list just because they can bite.

So this fall I received a call from a warehouse that was really having an issue with snakes and rattlesnakes to boot. They were wondering about near the bay doors and has people were coming around the corners they would get the shock of their life. So the fix is to take away the food, if you eliminate or reduce the numbers of rodents the snakes will move on. Now thats if they read the same book I read. But just for the facts it worked, reduced the number of rodents and the snake call went away.

Remember its not so much the technique as it is the knowledge. You can spend time trying to figure out the options and spend money often times with little or no effects. So call a Pest Management Professional at ProBest Pest Management and be ahead of the game.