Rodenticide

Rodenticides, colloquially rat poison, are typically non-specific pest control chemicals made and sold for the purpose of killing rodents.

Some rodenticides are lethal after one exposure while others require more than one. Rodents are disinclined to gorge on an unknown food (perhaps reflecting an adaptation to their inability to vomit), preferring to sample, wait and observe whether it makes them or other rats sick. This phenomenon of bait shyness or poison shyness is the rationale for poisons that kill only after multiple doses.

Besides being directly toxic to the mammals that ingest them, including dogs, cats, and humans, many rodenticides present a secondary poisoning risk to animals that hunt or scavenge the dead corpses of rats.

Anticoagulants are defined as chronic (death occurs one to two weeks after ingestion of the lethal dose, rarely sooner), single-dose (second generation) or multiple-dose (first generation) rodenticides, acting by effective blocking of the vitamin K cycle, resulting in inability to produce essential blood-clotting factors — mainly coagulation factors II (prothrombin) and VII (proconvertin).

In addition to this specific metabolic disruption, massive toxic doses of 4-hydroxycoumarin, 4-thiochromenone and indandione anticoagulants cause damage to tiny blood vessels (capillaries), increasing their permeability, causing diffuse internal bleeding. These effects are gradual, developing over several days. In the final phase of the intoxication, the exhausted rodent collapses due to hemorrhagic shock or severe anemia and dies calmly. The question of whether the use of these rodenticides can be considered humane has been raised.

The main benefit of anticoagulants over other poisons is that the time taken for the poison to induce death means that the rats do not associate the damage with their feeding habits.

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