The highs and lows of maintaining free-living colony of Rattus rattus

摘要

Due to expansion of BASF pest control business, we were required to fulfil a need to obtain quality experimental data on the testing of our rodenticide products which were intended for sale in countries such as Asia, where Black Rats Rattus rattus arethe main rodent pest species.Unfortunately, there are no breeding establishments in this country that can supply laboratory bred Rattus rattus for the purposes of experimental testing. Therefore, in 2003 BASF acquired a free living colony of Rattus rattus from Rentokil UK.Due to the natural behaviour of the animals to live above ground level and the fact that the animals had been kept as a free living colony, it was decided that singly caging to perform feeding studies on individuals, was not an option as the animals would suffer considerable stress from being handled, removed from their familiar environment and being contained in a space restricted cage.It was decided that the only way to obtain quality experimental data was to test the colony as a whole, that way the natural behaviour of the animals would be maintained as they would experience minimal disruption.