Chapter 13 - Introduction

Both beetles and rodents can become a nuisance for neighbors, resulting in complaints to the grower and broiler integrator. The migration of darkling beetles from litter spread on fields has resulted in a number of lawsuits.

It should be easy enough to justify good beetle and rodent control with common sense alone. You don’t need a laboratory study proving that they can carry the XYZ virus or a pen study to show how many points of feed conversion are lost.

Table 13.1 - Impact of darkling beetle and rodent infestations in poultry houses

	Consume poultry feed	Transmit disease	Damage housing	Eat chickens
Darkling beetles
Rodents