Dr. Murai Éva szerk.: Parasitologia Hungarica 23. (Budapest, 1990)

RESULTS 1. First we examined whether a corn- or an oat-based bait was preferred by the rats and mice. In the toxicity study, the LANIRAT-B bait manufactured by us containing corn grits as carrier resulted in 100 % mortality among rats within 3-7 days. In the free choice experiment, mortality was also 100 % for both rodent species. The rats died in 5-8 days, while the mice in 3-7 days time. In the free choice experiment (taking the total bait consumption 100 %), the rats consumed 33.0 % of the corn-based LANIRAT-B and 67.0 % of the EPA standard. The mice consumed 38.3 % of the corn-based bait and 61.7 % of EPA standard (Table 1). 2. In a subsequent step, we conducted toxicity and appetibility tests with the LANIRAT-B bait containing hulled oat as carrier. In both types of tests there was 100 % mortality for both rats and mice (Table 2). The rats died in 6.2 while the mice in 6.8 days on the average. In the free choice experiment the rats consumed 73.4 % of the oat-based LANIRAT-B bait and only 26.6 % of the EPA standard. Mouse, too, consumed much more (69.7 %) of the oat-based bait than of the EPA mixture (30.3 %). The first two series of experiments revealed that the oat-based formula was twice as good as the corn-based one; therefore, only the former was used in the further studies. EPA standard Fig. 4: Comparative appetibility test of LANIRAT-B and TOMORIN-B baits with laboratory rats