FORAGING BEHAVIOR OF WILD RATS (RATTUS-NORVEGICUS) TOWARDS NEW FOODS AND BAIT CONTAINERS

Groups of wild rats (Rattus norvegicus) were housed in large arenas an d their foraging behaviour towards unfamiliar food, novel food and nov el food containers was monitored using remote sensing equipment. Three main findings resulted from the study. There is a large individual va riation in the responses to new foods and food containers placed in th e home range. There is a clear sex difference in that, although males and females take approximately the same weight of food over a 24 h per iod, females forage in many short visits (mean = 28.4, SE = 1.3 per da y) whilst males take fewer, longer feeding visits (mean = 15.3, SE = 1 .9). The most important finding is that neophobia to new food containe rs is far stronger than neophobia to new foods. This effect is suffici ent to create practical control problems when rodenticide bait is used within bait containers. A possible way to overcome this problem is di scussed.