Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference

In this extensive review, we note that brodifacoum has been successfully evaluated against most small mammal pests around the world, and in a variety of both commensal and agricultural situations. Brodifacoum offers reduced rodenticide requirements to lower costs and hazard, and makes new baiting strategies, such as pulsed baiting, practical for large-scale use. Broad spectrum activity enables effective control with mixed-species infestations and against those normally tolerant of other anticoagulants, such as house mice. Useful against warfarin-resistant commensal rodents, brodifacoum gives effective control in urban and other situations where first-generation anticoagulants have previously been extensively used. It has the same mode of action and antidote (vitamin K) as other anticoagulants, providing the advantages of delayed action. We include exhaustive appendices of brodifacoum’s toxicity to a wide diversity of rodents worldwide, as well as listings of previous published research on this new compound.