Mice have plagued humanity for more than thirty thousand years. They are the original pest, one we had to deal with since agrarian culture began in the stone age. The moment we had more things, more food than we could carry we had to settle down, make homes, and stay in one place. This led to farming and with farming came plenty. The cup floweth over and the ancient humans had enough food stored yearly to fend of winter starvation. This was all endangered by the introduction of the rodent. Mice would access not only the farmed food as it was growing, eating bud that would have been fruit, nuts, or seeds but then breaking into the storage silos and accessing food there. This is not just a matter of loss of food but the destruction of the entire food storage. Rodents defecate and urinate on food as they eat it. Eating that food, especially in the days before modern medicine was suicide. So began the never-ending war against mice. It took the world a long time to realize that traps were not efficient. Water bucket traps, snap traps of varying designs and functions. Humane capture traps, modern Zapp traps which electrocute the rodent to death, and many others. These are ineffective because mice reproduce far too quickly to kill in a one at a time manner like that. The only way to kill them is with poison.
What kind of poison? No one knew at first but people are smart and resourceful and they managed to figure it out. The first type of poison was an ingenious concoction but still suffered the issue of not affecting enough rodents at once. Metal Phosphides like Sinc phosphide are highly reactive chemicals and when they enter the bowels of a rodent they mix with the rodent’s stomach acid and form phosphine gas. This kills the rodent rapidly in as little as one to three days but is not efficient in dealing with a severe mice infestation. The very first anticoagulant rodent poison to be invented was not to be a poison. It was medical aid to stop blood from clotting in the human body and brain. This was a life-saving medication but and like Advil, today can save lives and prevent strokes. However, one smart person realized that if they used this chemical that inhibits the production of vitamin K, the vitamin that allows blood to clot that rodents could be killed off in a very different and much more massive way. A bait station containing a large amount of this anti-coagulant bait can provide food for hundreds of mice. The reason mice desiccate entirely when they eat it is because they already have a very low water content in their bodies and often drink only once every few years and can survive without water for up to three years.
