DITCHLING CORPORATION LIMITED  "Supplying professional Pest Control products since 1964"

 

Norway Rats 

 

Description  Adult Norway Rats are 12 to 18 inches long including a 5 to 8 inch tail. Fur color on the back and sides ranges from reddish to greyish brown, while the belly is usually white with grey underfur. Norway Rats weigh 7-18 oz. A Rat can eat 10% of its body weight in a day. Normally, a Rat will travel a maximum of about 100 feet for its food and water.

The Norway Rat (rattus norvegicus) is found throughout North America; it is also known as Brown Rat, Sewer Rat, Water Rat and Wharf Rat.    Rats need three things to live - Food, Shelter, Water; without them they cannot survive and will migrate to areas where all three vital factors are available.    Rats are very adaptable in their habits and have no set pattern of behavior. As environmental conditions change, they modify their habits accordingly. For example, Rat activity is most evident at night , but when undisturbed or very hungry they move about and feed in the daytime.    Hiding places of Rats are usually well protected and chosen to give the Rats protection from their enemies.  Outdoors, the nesting places may be in burrows in the ground, tangles of tree limbs, trash dumps, or piles of rubbish.  Indoors, nests can be found in wall voids, underneath floors next to the ground, or in undisturbed rubbish or stored materials.    Rats have poor vision but their senses of smell, hearing, and touch are highly developed.    In any given area, the Rat population is in direct proportion to food, water, and shelter. For instance in a building or given area of land, if there is enough food, water, and shelter to sustain, say, 100 Rats and the population of Rats in this area were to increase to 150 Rats, the colony itself would reduce the population to the maximum for sustaining life - 100 Rats. The decrease would be caused through death - killing of each other in fights, eating of the young, or being killed by predators - or by emigration of some of the Rats to another area.    Similarly, if you were trying to eliminate these 100 Rats by rodent control and only got 70% or 80% kill, the remaining Rats would reproduce rapidly until the colony reached 100 Rats in a very short time.    In nature Rats usually live about 1 year, in captivity they may live up to three years. They can breed as often as once per month. A female Rat can produce 4-7 litters each with 8-12 young. This ability to multiply so quickly causes a constant problem in population dynamics. A female Rat has a gestation period of about 21 days and may breed again as soon as a day or two after littering.    Health Risks  Norway Rats spread disease directly through fecal contamination and Rat bites, or indirectly through Fleas and Mites. Among the diseases spread are: Rat Bite Fever, Weil’s disease, Leptospirosis, Salmonellosis, Trichinosis, Murine Typhus, Toxoplasmosis, Listeriosis, and Bubonic Plague.