Thread: Pest control

On behalf....
Having a conversation with someone last night about a pest problem. Have always considered getting into pest control as a money maker but other than doing possums for $$$ I have no idea about it as an industry. Experienced hunter otherwise.
Is there a need for private pest controllers? CNI?
How is it financially done, pest controllers keep the pests and make money that way or are they paid per head by land owners?
Fairly Well equipped hunter, thermal, night vision, 4wd vehicle, brilliant pest dog, leg traps and so on.

the way iv seen it done is thru applying for contracts with the regional council

they specify how/what to use (poison,traps,shooting ect)

they then put out marker tags and see how many possoms remain after the pest control is done

Its a pass fail thing and usually its paid by the hectare and if i remember correctly the person applying puts in a price and they accept the lowest ect

mostly traps and poison from what Iv seen

pest control over new planting in the forestrys/Avocado orchards is another one but you will need the licences that go along with it (like having a loaded gun in a vehicle/shooting from a moving vehicle ect)

Iv done a bit but I am always just the helper not the organiser and usually im working for free or for bullets sometimes

Originally Posted by Bill999

the way iv seen it done is thru applying for contracts with the regional council

they specify how/what to use (poison,traps,shooting ect)

they then put out marker tags and see how many possoms remain after the pest control is done

Its a pass fail thing and usually its paid by the hectare and if i remember correctly the person applying puts in a price and they accept the lowest ect

mostly traps and poison from what Iv seen

pest control over new planting in the forestrys/Avocado orchards is another one but you will need the licences that go along with it (like having a loaded gun in a vehicle/shooting from a moving vehicle ect)

Iv done a bit but I am always just the helper not the organiser and usually im working for free or for bullets sometimes

Thanks.
They are looking at doing more private land. Other than firearms licence and public liability would there be other certificates they would need? Won’t be using poisons at this stage.

Not that I am aware of except for where sale of carcasses to processors is involved (maf) and or disposal of carcasses.

Certificates etc required probably depends on whether they are considered a contractor or an employee.

if its private land i Imagine it gets a lot more lax but it gets a lot harder to do anything worth getting payed for

it all depends how you go about it
and what level of risk you want to assume

Unless there has just been a valuable tree crop planted out or an orchard conversion it can be hard to convince anyone to pay you.

hares can cause thousands of dollars of damage per night snipping off valuable avocado seedlings at $30+ per tree and a thousand trees per hectare. one disgruntled hare pissed that you planted a heap of trees in his back yard can get quite expensive
thats where people want the help solving problems

most of the commercial stuff is poison.
either bait station or little blue ferratox bags(cyanide)
poison license isnt hard or expensive
one day course and maybe under $200 when I done it
didnt use poison myself but was ticking off boxes incase I needed to

Id say go do a bit of work for a pest controller for 6 months and see what makes up their bread and butter income
support work like loading the cyanide + prefeed into the ferratox bags earned well when I was in my teens
$40 for a thousand and id do a thousand and a half in an hour
3 thousand $120 and id bang that out in about two hours
not bad beer money for a teen for a couple of hours after school

I know a guy who was in this situation, started looking for pest control jobs under a year ago and now has a contract to control deer and goats in 50,000ha of forestry, and has 10 staff! Look in the right places and there are opportunities.

Originally Posted by Bill999

hares can cause thousands of dollars of damage per night snipping off valuable avocado seedlings at $30+ per tree and a thousand trees per hectare. one disgruntled hare pissed that you planted a heap of trees in his back yard can get quite expensive
thats where people want the help solving problems

I've seen hares do well over $2000 worth of damage in a single night just on forest plantings. What they could do to new avo plantings is something I had not considered. Most grafted avos have reasonably thick trucks, are the hares snipping them off like with forest seedling damage, or are they ringbarking and destroying foliage, branches etc?


@Bill999 did you need to have a CSL to load the bags as a teenager?

exactly like what you see done to the pine seedlings mate
chopped at a 45degree angle
reeeeealy expensive hares
Iv heard single hares causing 5k+ in replacement trees with the cost of planting and wages on top of that


I had CSL and so did dad at the time so two under the same roof covered bases
not sure if I was technically operating under or whatever
it was for a family friend that was doing sometimes up to 4k a week, I just wished he could have done ten times that so id get some extra coin
everything was lock and key safely stored ect

that seems too high $$ now I cost it out to 143 avo trees maybe an exaggeration
very possible but still seems on the high side
40-50 trees is a real bad one with 5-15 bieng a "normal"

the avo trees to be released from the nursery need to be 10mm< which they arnt always but tend to be around 12mm
hares snip them with very little effort and always on a perfect 45 degree which is an easy thing to spot

Originally Posted by muzza

Talk to Mintie - he does this for a living.

There are a lot of commercial pest operators and P-endorsed cullers on this forum, most don't post very often, but I'm expecting some will be contacting Chelsea directly.

Mate is having a tough time controlling goats in Redwood plantation, apparently they love gums and redwoods. You need to be a killer though, he shot over 1400 goats last year and he's only part time. Check with forestry companies.

Forestry companies are hard work, they are better off getting for a established company for a start. Will make things a lot easier long term

I've been doing a fair bit of pest control for local lifestyle blocks and small farms, ever since I realised that I might need a fallback option when my job gets jab-mandated. Been doing ok so far, not enough to make it a full-time job, but decent enough to put some extra coin away.

Now though, I'm putting together a plan for a local authority that needs some goats cleaned out. Of course that means a lot more paperwork. The one thing I'm really struggling with is putting together a health and safety plan. I mean, I know how to keep myself safe, and not shoot anyone, but the council needs more than that.

Does anyone have a template I could use, or something I could plagiarise a wee bit?

Originally Posted by Ronin007

Does anyone have a template I could use, or something I could plagiarise a wee bit?

Must be some online on a tramping forum somewhere? Used to do the risk assessment as part of a polytechnic course 10+yrs ago. Hunting = armed tramping....