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Pests in the Wash Pack
30 Plays4 years ago
Whether it's mice, rats, birds, or rabbits, many growers struggle with managing pests on the farm. In this episode, Phil Tocco, a Produce Safety Educator with MSU Extension, and Emily Hale, a Produce Safety Technician with the Blue Water Conservation District, give some advice on how to keep these pests under control.
Additional Resources
Animals in Production Areas – Article by Emily Hale
Funding for this podcast was made possible in part by the Food and Drug Administration through grant PAR-16-137. The views expressed in the posted materials do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices or organization imply endorsement by the United States Government.
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Transcript
Introduction to Produce Safety
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Agri-Food Safety Produce Bites Podcast, where we discuss all things produce safety and dive into the rules and regulations surrounding the Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule.
Hosts' Backgrounds
00:00:13
Speaker
My name is Phil Tocco. I'm with Michigan State University Extension. I am the on-farm produce safety educator covering the entire state, but based in Jackson, Michigan.
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm Emily Hale. I am a produce safety technician working out of the Blue Water Conservation District in respect to produce safety.
Pest Issues in Wash Pack Areas
00:00:32
Speaker
So Emily, I'm curious. You've been on a lot of farms and taking a look at wash pack areas across your region. And I'm curious what kind of things that you've seen in the wash pack areas with respect to pests that show up in those wash pack areas.
00:00:47
Speaker
Yeah, so a lot of pests that I see farms struggling with and managing would be rodents for sure. And oftentimes birds getting in there in the rafters can cause havoc in washpack areas. Other small animals like rabbits or groundhogs sometimes can disturb washpack areas. So why do folks have to worry about that?
00:01:15
Speaker
Yeah, because those animals can really bring in contaminants from outside, tracking in soil or even feces, and then also themselves depositing feces in those production areas and contacting produce or produce contact surfaces. Okay. Phil, what tends to attract pest into the wash pack areas?
00:01:37
Speaker
Well, food, of course. When you've got a possum or a rodent or anything else, they're looking for a warm place to live and someplace with lots of food. And inside of a wash pack area, typically it's a little warmer than outdoors. It's got a source of food in terms of the, the calls and stuff that most people don't want to have any, want to put into the food system. So.
00:02:01
Speaker
the critters come in looking for a nice meal. And unfortunately, the calls tend to be a really nice meal for rodents and stuff. So that's part of it. And it's a warm spot to live. If they find a little crack, they can get in there and just go to town.
Pest Prevention Strategies
00:02:19
Speaker
So I'm curious if they're getting in.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'm curious about how you might want to take care of the outside of the washback area to maybe keep them from getting in or to maybe reduce the chances that they're going to get in in the first place. Yeah. So like you said, um, they will find any cracks in buildings. So having a tightly sealed building is ideal. Um, but other ways you can manage the outside of your building is keeping the grass and lawn around the building mode. So you're not supporting a habitat.
00:02:51
Speaker
for those animals. You can also, you know, don't pile any wood or equipment around that may also support a habitat for animals that are coming in. Obviously one of the major pests that producers are battling in wash pack areas are rodents and mice. Do you have any tips for controlling those?
00:03:16
Speaker
Sure, pretty much when you think about mouse traps and such, it's important to remember that mouse traps are really not meant to be the controller of mice, but really meant to be the sort of the monitoring system.
00:03:32
Speaker
We often use mouse traps to figure out where the critters are getting into a pack house. And then once we know which mouse traps are getting triggered regularly, then we look for a reason or a way that they're getting in in that area.
00:03:48
Speaker
So that's something to, it's sort of a different mindset, and it's one that we need to think about and consider. When it comes to actual traps, most folks, you know, you've got a lot of choices with respect to traps. So it's important to think about a trap that doesn't use bait, but is a kill trap. Because a lot of those baits, the basis of those bait are
00:04:12
Speaker
a kind of chemical that that basically is a blood thinner. And so the critters when they eat it, they want to stay there, it opens up microscopic, they start to bleed internally. And so they seek out water as a sort of a mechanism as they die.
00:04:28
Speaker
And unfortunately, the biggest source of water in a pack house is the food itself.
Bird Control in Packhouses
00:04:33
Speaker
And you can imagine if you've got a buyer opening up a package of produce and there's a dead mouse at the bottom of the package, it's going to do some nasty things to your sales. So we strongly encourage folks to use kill traps or tin cats that can trap the animals and kill them inside of a box so that they're not wandering around.
00:04:56
Speaker
So you mentioned birds and I think it's interesting. I'm curious about what tips you might have for controlling birds inside of a packhouse. Yeah. So for controlling birds, exposed rafters are often where you're going to find birds hanging out in your wash pack areas. So having a way to either, you know, put up a long term solution of covering those rafters or even maybe putting netting up so that birds can establish themselves on those rafters.
00:05:24
Speaker
can be ways to discourage them from entering or hanging out in the wash pack area. Another thing that you could do, you know, if you want to open windows in your wash pack and you don't have screens or something like that, also netting those windows so it's not an easy way to come in. On your overhead doors, your larger doors that you might keep open while you're working in your wash pack area and bringing produce in and out. You can put deterrents such as streamers that would scare birds from flying in.
00:05:53
Speaker
Other farms have also put out dummy birds of prey so that this also discourages birds from flying in to your wash pack.
Pets in Pest Management
00:06:05
Speaker
Cool. What about having pets in your wash pack? Can you give suggestions to growers on that?
00:06:11
Speaker
So when it comes to outdoor situations, that is situations in the field, pets are not prohibited from being in production areas outside, like in the field. And typically when you're thinking about a pet's impact, more as a working animal or as a wildlife deterrent,
00:06:32
Speaker
In a field situation, as long as you manage the poop, many inspectors don't have an issue. So things like having a cat to keep the mice away, the rodents away, or a dog to scare the deer away, those kinds of things tend to be more allowed. But in a packhouse situation,
00:06:49
Speaker
where you've got four walls and it's an enclosed situation, there's a very different approach put out by the produce safety rule. They basically say that pets are specifically prohibited from being inside of a pack house. So it's a very different sort of
00:07:06
Speaker
flavor. So it's not ambiguous at all.
Fly Management Techniques
00:07:10
Speaker
If the packhouse isn't enclosed, if it's just like four sticks in a lid, basically what we call four sticks in a lid is basically like having like a pop-up awning or something like that. In those cases, as much as they're not specifically prohibited, they want to discourage there being pets in those areas, if that's the packhouse. Now I'm wondering,
00:07:36
Speaker
What about flies? Fly management is really call management. If you keep the calls down, you're gonna keep the flies down. Flies are a problem because they like to be in, they like to hang out in poop and they like to hang out in sweet stuff and vinegary stuff, anything that's rotten. So when you've got a lot of things like tomatoes rotting, there's a lot of vinegar and acids produced in those.
00:08:02
Speaker
in those tomatoes and they get attracted to that and then they get attracted to poop and pretty soon you've got flies floating all on landing on nice clean surfaces with their poopy feet and all of a sudden we're off to the races with some nasty stuff.
00:08:16
Speaker
The real issue is when they land on clean surfaces just because. And the research shows that they actually do bring in and can transfer basically poop from their feet onto clean surfaces and onto produce that is not contaminated. Just landing on it ancillary.
00:08:36
Speaker
So it's kind of weird. What I'm curious about Emily, and I don't know if you've heard about this or not, what role do things like predatory birds, like raptors and things, you mentioned the whole idea of keeping the outside of a wash pack clean. And I'm wondering if it's also possible by reducing the brush and reducing the height of the grass that you can maybe make those mice and rats that want to get into a wash pack.
00:09:04
Speaker
a little bit more obvious to things like hawks and kestrels to want to take those critters out. Yeah, introduce a control, a natural control in that way. Yeah, I haven't heard a lot about that. But I think obviously, like you're saying, if you can keep those areas mowed down and more exposure to animals that would control other things like rodents, that would certainly be beneficial to your operation.
Podcast Conclusion
00:09:31
Speaker
Cool. It's kind of like natural pest control.
00:09:34
Speaker
Links or definitions to anything referenced in this episode are provided in our show notes, which can be accessed on the website at c-a-n-r dot m-s-u dot e-d-u slash agri-food underscore safety. Thank you to everyone for listening, and don't forget to tune in next month for another episode of our Produce Bites podcast.