[dan353hehe]

> But it was easy to prove warfarin was safe: a pest control officer held a series of local meetings where he ate warfarin-treated rolled oats while discussing rat control.

Got to love those live demos. Eating rat poison in front of the audience to prove it is safe!

[_whiteCaps_]

The dose makes the poison. Warfarin is prescribed as a blood thinner for humans.

[scotty79]

Is it only the dose? I think I read somewhere that rodents are especially vulnerable to this substance for some genetic reason. To lazy to check again. Not to lazy to pronounce my ignorance in a comment. Oh my.

[graeme]

>Is it only the dose?

I think they meant, for humans, the dose makes the poison. We would have to eat a very large amount of warfarin to have trouble. Rats get hurt from a small amount.

Poison is dose dependent, but the actual dose dependency is different between species.

[sandworm101]

Metabolic rate. The canary doesnt die fast because it is genetically sensitive. It dies fast because a birds metabolic rate is like a firecracker compared to ours.

[sokka_h2otribe]

This may not be true...

Some birds have incredible metabolic rates --> take for example a humming bird.

However if I were to assume a canary has twice the human metabolic rate, it isn't a very good sensor. So, the canary dies half as soon? But the canary isn't even about poisonous gas. I believe it's about explosive methane gas, as their gas lanterns would need to be extinguished if the canary died, or else the gas leak that killed the canary could explode.

So, yeah, anyway. I think your information on this example is wrong, please feel free to correct me

[joseda-hg]

I mean, however close we might treat them as, they're still fundamentally diferent animals

Since they can't throw up or burp, something that produces enough gas (More than a regular soda) could in theory kill a rat, but just make a human slightly inconvenienced, or on the same idea, you could wrap the poisson on an emetic agent to make it safer while not affecting the rat at all

[linuxkernal]

Poor guy, must of had so many complications

[maxerickson]

Warfarin is reversible with vitamin k. I suppose he was also getting a low dose per unit of body mass.

[flakes]

When we had mice in our house years ago, we tried for a few weeks setting poison bait in the garage to get rid of them. We could tell the mice were eating the bait, but there was still no end to the mice.

We then had a thought... what if the mice were also eating the dog food in the garage? The container lid for the dog food was not very strong (weak and flexible enough that a mouse could possibly squeeze in and out), and coincidentally, that dog food was also high in Vitamin K.

Once we got better sealed containers to store the dog food, it only took a few days before we started seeing delirious, sick mice running around aimlessly in plain day light. Shortly after that, we stopped seeing them entirely.

It's possible the dog food was not reversing the poison. Maybe with the dog food locked up they started eating more bait, or maybe it simply took longer than we expected for the poison kick in. But regardless, we definitely learned a valuable lesson about keeping the pet food well sealed!

[slow_typist]

Just curious, you poisoned them once and no mice returned ever since? In my house I had mice during the cold/wet season. Attempts to get rid of the population by killing them were futile. (House is now free of mice though. I secured every single possibility to get in during the summer. I read some mice can get through gaps that are 1 cm or .4 inches wide.)

[flakes]

We did do a lot of work sealing the exterior of the home, as well as removal of bird feeders near the house itself. The poison likely wasn’t a silver bullet, but I recall it (along with removing any access to easy food) having the most dramatic impact overall.

[firmretention]

Yeah, without sealing entry points, they just keep coming. Not only can they can squeeze through tiny holes, they leave a trail of pheromones behind them letting other mice know where to come in. Mice infestations are awful. Hate the buggers.

[sandworm101]

Was the guy secretly eating Special K cereal?

[loloquwowndueo]

*have had

[jrflowers]

* would of

[loloquwowndueo]

Your killing me, man

[jrflowers]

Don’t take a fence