In this feature, Agserv business consultant Andy Knox invites a pest control professional to talk about their favourite product. Here, he asks pest manager Dan Krahe, “What is your favourite product and why?”
Although anticoagulant rodenticides are used in the vast majority of rodent baits, there is an alternative that offers very real benefits. Fastrac, manufactured by Bell Laboratories, is a unique bait that utilises the acute poison bromethalin (not an anticoagulant), differentiating the product from 95% of rodenticides used in and around Australia.
Bromethalin provides Fastrac with performance, efficiency and safety benefits. Norway rats, roof rats or house mice, including those resistant to anticoagulants, normally only need a single feed of Fastrac to ingest a lethal dose. It is a very fast acting option for rodent control – they die within two days, compared to the five or more for anticoagulants. Due to this effective knockdown, more rodents may be controlled with less bait, which means pest managers have the potential to save time and money. Importantly, the product does not build up in the food chain through secondary toxicity, which is a major concern with all anticoagulants.
Brothers Brad and Dan Krahe, co-owners of Krahes Pest Control (KPC) in Wimmera, VIC (pictured above with the KPC team) first heard about Fastrac from Bell’s Samuel Wood at a Pestech seminar in 2021. They thought it sounded like the perfect addition to their rodenticide range and decided to give it a go. KPC has been providing pest control services throughout the Wimmera Mallee area of Victoria for over 17 years. Its main customer base is residential – but much of this is rural, farmhouses and associated sheds – so it overlaps with industrial pest control. Rodents present a challenge for many of their customers.
One of the main challenges for KPC is the very long distances they need to travel to reach many of their customers. If a rodenticide could give a quick result with little or no need for callbacks or re-baiting, it would save a great deal of time and effort. On top of that, the farming community is well aware of the problem of secondary toxicity with anticoagulant poisons. Fastrac seemed to be the solution to both of these issues.
Since 2021, KPC has been using Fastrac and find it to be effective against all their problem rodent species, with mice being the main focus, but also Norway rats too. Fastrac Blox are made from a very palatable formulation, which is readily accepted by rodents, who love to gnaw on the ridges around the edges of the blocks. Fastrac Blox are purple, differentiating them from other rodenticide products.
Rats can be extremely picky when it comes to baiting. Sometimes one bait will be accepted, and on other sites it will be a different bait that will be taken.
“Because of distances and times, we will often start a job with some bait stations containing Ditrac, some with Fastrac. We can then concentrate on the bait that is primarily being accepted – which we find is most commonly Fastrac,” said Dan Krahe.
Fastrac is available from Agserv branches nationwide. Dan and Brad Krahe purchase Fastrac and many more of their products from Agserv in Melbourne, saying they find the staff easy to deal with, helpful and supportive.
