Rodents trapping
Rodent trapping was carried out in houses and around human dwellings, farms proximal to human settlements such as cultivated cropland by using Sherman live traps (7.5 × 9.0 × 23.0 cm) and locally made live traps with wooden box wire mesh window (12 ×15 ×20cm) (Mlowe et al ., 2023). Captured rodents were collected, anesthetized with Diethyl Ether preserved with ethanol, and identified to species level using the established taxonomic nomenclature. Rodent morphometric data including weight, total length, tail length, hind foot length, and ear length were then recorded (Mgode et al ., 2019; Mgode et al ., 2021).