Aussie Farmer Defends Himself After He Was Criticised For Burning Mice Alive

An Australian farmer has been forced to defend himself after posting a pretty intense method of dealing with the mouse plague.

Millions of mice have been invading farms up and down the eastern rural side of Australia and they've caused untold damage.

Farmers and townspeople have had their crops and equipment ruined and they've all suffered sleepless nights as the rodents crawl through everything imaginable.

Many have turned to industrial chemicals that have been approved by the New South Wales government to control the vermin. However, Andrew took a different approach.

He has uploaded a video of him emptying his auger, which is a 'corkscrew-like farming machine'. The mice had climbed into it after it was used to pump grain into a silo and they munched on any food that was left over.

Andrew decided to clean out the machine over a barrel of flames.

He uploaded a video of him doing this to his TikTok account and it's very clear the mice are still alive when they fall into the pit of fire.

Some scamper off after hitting the ground, however many fall directly into the open flames, where they die a painful death.

The video has been watched more than six million times on the social media app and he's copped a bit of abuse on there.

Someone called him 'messed up' for his approach to the mice plague and he hit back simply by saying that user was 'messed up'.

When another person called him wrong, Andrew called them wrong.

PA

A user asked whether he could have killed the mice more 'humanely' and he defended himself again saying: "So baiting them is humane? They die slowly over time...drowning them is humane. Give me a humane way to kill them and I'll do it."

To drive home how devastating and constant this plague is, Andrew posted a video the next day of the exact same setting; this time without the flaming barrel.

It shows dozens, if not hundreds, of alive mice tumbling out of the auger and scampering away to find their next bit of food and multiply.

It's feared the mice plague could cause $1 billion worth of lost crops and poison baits in New South Wales alone.

Scientists have proposed 'napalming' the critters with the poison bromadiolone. However, a larger debate has been sparked about what the environmental impact of that will be.

Topics: Australia

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie