Occurrence of pest rodents and their control on swine and cattle farms

Production animals can be carriers or reservoirs of zoonotic pathogens. The infection can occur via different routes, for example from contacts with pest animals and wildlife. Farm-level actions in controlling the number of pest animals and preventing their access to production animals and feed are crucial. 

In this project rodents were trapped on Finnish cattle (n=18) and swine (n=20) farms on two consecutive nights using approximately one hundred instantly killing traps, which were checked and cleared after each night. A questionnaire concerning farm management, biosecurity and pest control was completed on the farm visits, to provide background on the factors affecting rodent yield and presence of zoonotic pathogens. The intestinal package of the caught rodents and other small mammals were cultured for detecting campylobacteria, salmonella, yersinia and toxin-producing E. coli. The determination of the possible antimicrobial resistance profile of at least E. coli indicator bacteria strains will be carried out. In this poster the preliminary results of the questionnaire and trapping
are presented.