I was wondering if the poison found in D-Con Mouse Baits would kill dermestid beetles if they were to be fed a mouse that died from the poison. I have all these dead mice in my attic that I could give my colony if it was safe to do so. If anyone could enlighten me on if rodent poisons are harmful to dermestids, I'd be very greatful.
Urgent Question
- Thread starter Cockroach
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Take a dead mouse and some of your beetles house them in a different containair and observe if the beetles die then dont feed them the mice lol
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It's rather late for me and I just worked 40 in 72 and I'm forgetting the terms but rodent bait isan anticlotting agent which makes the mouse bleed to death internally and would have no effect on dermestids since insect and vertebrate blood is not even remotely the same. You could throw a bunch of rodent bait in a mealworm culture and never know it except for the blue poop.
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I agree with MantidAssassins, most rat bait is a drug called warfarin which is a thinning and anti-clotting agent. When fed to the rodents it causes them to bleed to death internally. As animal blood is vastly different from invert blood, I doubt it would be the threat it is for mammals. But, you might want to try a small experiment with a few of the beetles though before feeding the colony to be safe
Thanks everyone. I was going to take the advice of Malhavoc's, and use some of my colony as a test group, but when I got a mouse killed from the bait, I noticed some wild Dermestids feeding and breeding on it. I now know for sure that Warfarin does not kill inverts. Now I have another sp. of Dermestid Beetles in my collection
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