Ideal mouse breeding conditions prompt plague warning for central western NSW
A perfect winter cropping season across Australia’s eastern states is creating ideal mouse breeding conditions, prompting farmers and regional residents to prepare themselves for another plague.
What would normally be welcome news – a bumper grain harvest – has instead led to rising levels of anxiety in crop farming regions, which have only just recovered from the mice plague at the start of the year.
Elyse and Angus Church live on a farm in Come By Chance, between Coonamble and Walgett in northern New South Wales with their three children, Isabelle 11, Billy 9, and Pippa 6.
Elyse said the mouse plague that took hold in much of central west NSW earlier this year has had a “massive impact on us all, and we will never really know the true extent of the damage or costs”.
“You couldn’t escape it,” Elyse said. “As awful as it is to say, at least when you are experiencing a drought, you and your family can still have a safe environment, being your home to return to.”
“Our kids didn’t feel safe and so the impact was made bigger.”
This was not the case during the mice plague. Isabelle would go to bed in tears and cocoon herself in her doona every night during the worst of the summer plague.
Days were spent filling and blocking holes in the house and moving everything from the bedrooms on to the veranda.
“The only thing in the rooms were the beds, as we had to remove all possible nesting options for the mice. I pretty much have to throw the linen cupboard out as the mice died through it and left blood”.
Elyse had only just started to unpack her pantry from plastic Tupperware containers when warnings ramped up of another potential mouse plague approaching. Elyse said her children are nervous again.
“We’ve done it before, so we can get through it again if we need to. We are prepared, we have bait on hand and have done the work to make their way into the house a harder task.”
Sandy Stump, a farmer in nearby Burren Junction, said that while he had lots of mice at the end of summer, he is yet to see any significant numbers in his crops as he heads into spring. Heavy downpours in March killed a lot of mice even though many remain in and around buildings and grain silos.
However, Sandy is prepared for the possibility of damage as the weather warms and he is holding about five tonnes of bait, just in case. While mice love crops like canola, wheat and legumes, he reckons his mustard crops are safe.
Agronomist Brett Cumberland of Delta Ag in Trangie, is warning all farmers that the potential consequences of another mice plague are hugely concerning.
“The mice are crawling up the wheat stalks and chewing the plant in half. Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” Cumberland said.
“They’re clever, they can turn it on pretty quickly”, once they get going “I can’t see us pulling them up,” he said. With the crops around Trangie not likely to be harvested until at least the first week of November “there is some pain to come”.
CSIRO research officer and mouse expert, Steve Henry, has been unable to get on to farms due to current Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. But he has been receiving reports across the cropping zone from agronomists and farmers that mice infestations are persisting.
Henry said the situation can rapidly escalate from “I’ve got a few mice around” to “my goodness, I am overrun.”
“I don’t like to say it”, Henry said, “but if farmers bait before the crop fully ripens, when there is less food around, the mice are likely to find the bait and the bait will be more lethal.”
The damage mice cause, coupled with the speed at which they breed means plagues can hit quickly. Mice breed every 19 to 21 days and can have between six and 10 pups a litter. Unlike any other animal, mice can become pregnant again within two to three days of giving birth, creating a constant reproduction cycle.