Last year's 'mouse plague' saw severe damages to Riverina farming crops and infrastructure.

One third of farmers responding to a 2021 NSW Farmers survey reported estimated losses of between $50,000 and $150,000 after last year's inundation.

After a historically 'soft summer' and plenty of feed around for rodents, NSW Farmers Riverina Branch Chair Alan Brown is already seeing plenty of mouse activity on his Borambola farm, with mice taking bait around his buildings.

"I'm also hearing reports of rats," Mr Brown said.

"I don't know which one's worse - I think rats are, actually, because they chew everything.

"But there's certainly a population buildup going on."

According to Mr Brown, the message to farmers is clear this season, with hopes the region doesn't face a repeat of 2021.

"Monitor, monitor, monitor," he said.

"Bait early and often."

Mr Brown said some of the signs are similar to last year.

"They're in refuges such as haystacks and around buildings," he said.

"I keep and monitor bait stations, and the bait is going constantly. It's not heavy at the moment, but it's constant."

Newly emerging crops are especially vulnerable to mice in the current season, which Mr Brown said also face the added nuisance of slugs.

"Most of the paddock feed for [mice] is gone and they go after newly emerging crops," Mr Brown said.

"They go after the seed - when they're really hungry, they'll dig the seed up as you sow it."

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Farmer Simon Moloney's newly emerging canola crops, north of Wagga, are at risk.

"We're finding a lot of mice cruising around at nighttime when we were sewing - heaps of them," said Mr Moloney, who also grows wheat.

"So, we got into them pretty early."

Like many in the area, Mr Moloney's farm was badly hit by last year's mouse plague.

"Pretty hard to put a percentage on it, but there were a lot of blank patches of crops that were chewed out by mice," he said.

"We were probably a bit too reactive last year."

More proactive this year, Mr Moloney said he's also seen slugs and rats.

"We've seen a few in the paddocks as well which is unusual for us - bush rats - they're massive."

Junee cropping and livestock farmer Martin Honner said mice also become an issue as winter approaches when they look for shelter from the cold.

"Cold weather will start driving them inside, that'll bring them in close to the infrastructure, but the paddocks are generally where you see the build up," he said.

Terminate Pest Control's Craig Williams said he's had a lot of recent call outs for mice in the Wagga area.

"I've had heaps over the last two weeks - mice and rats."

"Mice are starting to come in with this cooler weather, we've noticed a lot."

"And there seems to be a higher intake of rats at the moment getting into people's roofs for some reason.

Mr Williams doesn't yet know whether rodent levels will match last years.

"There's a lot of grain around. If there's a lot of grain, there's usually a lot of mice activity as well to go with it," he said.

"Who can tell - in the next couple of weeks, it could get a lot worse."

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