Grain conveyor and fire barrel: the brutal and controversial method of an Australian farmer desperate for the plague of mice

Australia is experiencing the worst mouse plague in its history, the one which threatens to soon reach big cities like Sydney or Melbourne, but which already has the country’s farmers completely desperate to the point of making them opt for enough “solutions” drastic to the thousands of rodents that invade their land.

In a video posted to TikTok, an Australian farmer demonstrates his extreme method of getting rid of mice that infested his plantation: He throws them alive into a burning barrel using a grain conveyor.

Images have been viewed over 6.2 million times before the farmer, a young man who appears with user @ andyj3825, removed him from the social network due to the great controversy he caused, as they see how animals are still cremated alive, and also how others fail to fall into the barrel and successfully escape the fire.

The discussion revolved around the “ethical” issues of Andrew’s method of getting rid of mice, but there was also a lot that supported the young man in the face of the obvious scale of the plague he was facing.

Some tiktokers have pointed out that burning live mice is a clear sign of “animal cruelty” and that the method is “brutal and extreme”.

“It sounds cruel, but the gigantic mouse population is an outright war. They destroy crops and houses. Whatever it takes to stop them “said another user, closer to Andrew’s position.

In other videos shared by the young man and which has less views, we see how his farm is completely infested with mice, which enter the grain harvest, affect other farm animals, and are found everywhere, since the fields, to Andrew’s house and truck.

What this young man is experiencing is just the tip of the iceberg amid the crushing mouse plague that Australia has suffered for months. A situation that has left the farmers helpless, who not only complain about the mice themselves, but that there are no viable solutions for their extermination, because the excessive use of poison also affects the rest of the livestock.

Australia suffers from periodic mouse infestations which typically affect grain-producing agricultural regions and tend to occur in ten-year cycles. But according to farmers’ associations across the country, it’s not only the worst, but it could be the longest, spreading to major cities and lasting at least two years.

The Australian government is evaluating plans to advance a mass mouse extermination across the country, which farmers say is badly needed but may be too late.

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