Town & Country Rural Supplies Bathurst has restocked rat and mouse bait.

Town and Country Rural Supplies Bathurst has already sold hundreds of products and has just restocked the shelves for the first time without having to put aside any pre-ordered products.

"What's come now, none of that is sold, everything else was pre-sold," Town and Country Rural Supplies owner Vicki Wilson said.

"This is our third lot of rat and mouse baits to arrive this week, we've only had one week where we didn't have any bait to sell.

"I think what's happened is because there wasn't any bait available out in the Dubbo area and they were running out. We had a lot of people coming from Dubbo, Forbes, Parkes, coming to Bathurst and picking up bait and buying it from us here which has been fantastic."

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With a big variety to choose from, Ms Wilson sources her products from multiple suppliers to ensure that her store has as much stock as possible.

"We sell about six different brands of rat and mouse bait, we sell the grain bait, the wax bait, the liquid and a paste," she said.

"So what we've been doing is sourcing our bait now from four or five different suppliers to make sure we didn't run out of stock."

Although the plague hit towns further west harder than it did Bathurst, Ms Wilson has still had locals complaining.

"On the outskirts of Bathurst now and houses in town, more in garages, but not as bad as out there," she said.

"I think what is really hard, it has been a tremendous five years for farmers. We've had five years now with the drought, we had the fires, we've had the rain, Covid and now a mouse plague and I think it's just been a hard toll on a lot of country people."

There has also been an increase in pets consuming the baits with Bathurst veterinarian Amy Sparks urging owners to take extra care.

"If there are non-bait options that's preferable but if they do have to put bait out then use the ones that are not accessible to the animals and monitor them closely," Dr Sparks said.

She also encourages owners to be wary of their pets eating mice that have consumed the bait, although not as dangerous as eating bait directly, it could still cause problems.

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