A bloke out the back of Jamberoo rang on a Monday. Eleven chooks gone in a fortnight, feathers along the fence line, and a fox he'd seen twice at dusk trotting along the paddock edge like it owned the place. He wanted baits down by the weekend and, while we were there, could we do something about the rabbits under the shed and whatever was thumping around in the roof.
The roof and the rabbits, yes. The baits, no, and not because we didn't want the work. This comes up on nearly every acreage call between Helensburgh and the Southern Highlands, so here's the line drawn properly.
The short version
A licensed pest controller on a rural block can deal with rodents in and around the buildings, rabbits, and trapping of foxes and feral cats within the NSW welfare rules. We can't lay 1080, we can't shoot, and wild dogs, deer, pigs and goats are Local Land Services and licensed-shooter territory. The landholder's own obligation sits over the top of all of it.
What the landholder is on the hook for
NSW puts a general biosecurity duty on everyone who deals with a biosecurity risk, and the state's own page for landholders puts it plainly: as a landholder it's your duty to manage pest animals on your land and stop new ones establishing. The named list runs feral pigs, foxes, wild dogs, feral cats, feral deer, rabbits, goats and more.
That doesn't mean you'll get a letter for one fox. It means "it's not my problem, they come from the national park" isn't a position, and it's why the fencing and harbour advice we give on a job isn't a sales pitch. Long grass around the sheds, a timber stack against the back fence and an open chook run are the three things that decide whether the fox comes back next month.
What we do on a block like that
Rats and mice, the bulk of it. Every rural property has a feed store, a hay shed, stables or a chook run, and every one of those is a rodent buffet. The population lives out there through summer and moves into the house ceiling as soon as the nights cool. We bait in lockable stations around the outbuildings, trap in the roof and the sheds, and go through the feed room for the gaps that need closing. It's the same rodent control we do in Corrimal, on a bigger site with more places to hide.
Rabbits. Warrens along the embankments, under the shed slab, in the blackberry along the creek. We find and treat the warrens, and we'll tell you honestly that fencing the vegetable garden and the young trees does more for the things you care about than trying to clear a whole hillside.
Foxes and feral cats, by trapping. Cage traps around the chook run or wherever the animal is working, set and checked every day by us. NSW also permits padded-jaw traps; we stick to cages. Steel-jaw traps are prohibited and no one should be offering them. The traps are cleared humanely and we don't leave them running unattended. It's slow, it works best in combination with fencing, and it is the legal, honest version of "get rid of the fox".
All of that is quoted after walking the block, because the sheds and the fencing are half the job. The service page is feral pest control.
What sits with Local Land Services
1080 baiting. This is the one people ask for first. In NSW, Local Land Services is the sole authorised distributor of 1080 bait products to the public, and to use them a landholder needs a current AQF3 chemical accreditation or the Vertebrate Pesticide Induction Training certificate. There are minimum distances from houses, roads and waterways, and you have to notify neighbours under the Pesticide Control Order before baits go down. None of that runs through a pest controller. If a fox or wild dog program on your block should be a baiting program, ring your LLS office on 1300 795 299 and they'll walk you through the accreditation and the group programs in your area.
Wild dogs. Coordinated LLS programs and, on a single property, trapping and shooting by people licensed to do it. We'll trap a fox; a wild dog program is not a one-man pest control job.
Deer. Rusa deer are a fixture along the escarpment and the Highlands, and they are classed as a feral pest in NSW, not a game animal. That means they can be controlled on private land by someone with a firearms licence and the landholder's permission. It also means it's shooting, which we don't do. Ask LLS about licensed contractors and the local deer programs.
Pigs and goats. Same column. LLS and licensed shooters.
Where the two meet
Most acreage jobs end up as both. The fox comes down for the chooks, the rats live in the chook feed, the rabbits are under the shed the rats are in, and the roof rats came in through the same fascia gap the possum uses. We do the rats, the rabbits and the trapping, we fix the harbour and the run, and we point you at LLS for anything with a firearm or a 1080 bait in it.
What a pest controller can do about foxes on an acreage in NSW
Trap them, humanely and legally, in cage traps checked daily; remove the harbour and den sites around the buildings; and fence the chook run and yard so the fox stops getting paid for the trip. What a pest controller can't do is lay 1080 (that's landholder-only, supplied through Local Land Services to accredited people) or shoot, which needs a firearms licence and the landholder's permission. If you want the fox gone and the chooks kept, the honest answer is trapping plus a fox-proof run, with an LLS baiting program if the neighbours are doing one too.
For the bloke at Jamberoo that meant a fox-proof run, cage traps checked daily, bait stations around the feed shed and the rabbits under it treated in the same visit. Anything with antlers that turns up in his top paddock is, as promised, somebody else's job.
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