Wanted !!!! Pied Piper. Pays Bad, Eggs Good.

Yes keepers, rats, so far I have seen the local stray cat take one from the garden, big enough to feed her family, i myself caught one that was burrowing under the black plastic that covers an area under the deck, to stop the weeds coming up, next bit not for the squeemish,close eyes now, I clubbed it with end blunt side of the axe, direct hit, not to sound too macabre, it kind of reminded me of one of those funfair sideshows,with the mallets and the strange looking clowns that pop out of the holes, and if you hit enough of them you win a cuddlely monkey.

I have set a trap under the house, on the path of a little vermin, I can see it’s little footprints,left in the dust that has gathered on the top of an old printer left by a previous tenant,( soon to be appearing on TradeMe), the printer that is not the previous tenant. The rat has not been fooled by the trap as yet, infact it has eaten all of the dairy lea slice off of the trap without setting it off, careful eating this rat. It now has a small smorga’s board of food, chick crums, laying pellets of two varieties, and dairy lea cheese, no wonder it’s quite happy to live under our house.

The hens are very good at alarming us to any prowlers in the garden, they wentt off at about 5:30 this afternoon, and sure enough ,when I went to investigate, the local bird catching cat Leroy, ( a cornish rex), had reappeared in the garden after a good 2 months away, probably run out of sparrows and blackbird chicks.

It was a bit of a day for returning animals, as if they had all been on holiday for a few weeks too, back from there summer hols and popped by to say hi, for not only did Leroy swing by, but a family of Mallards came back that had been visiting before christmas, Mum with her 6 ducklings all grown up, really lovely that they remembered us, as they came back to the front door as she has now with two sets of ducklings, and they came straight in through the front door and into the hallway demanding bread, at least I think that what they were saying, I gave then 3 slices, they left me 3 presents in the hall, maybe thats a formal custom in Mallard circles, I didn’t say anything, just incase I offended any of them, ( thank goodness for wooden floors) and off they went.

Predators

Hi there folks, while at the cemetry in Southend, I got talking to a lady about plants that rabbits wouldn’t eat, as the cemetry is overrun with rabbits, and most flowers that the loving families place on the graves, are demolished the very same night, so I put a small spikey succulent type plant on my fathers grave to deter the little furry critters. I noticed the grave the lady was tending was in full bloom, several flowering plants, so I asked her how she stopped the rabbits from eating them, ‘ Dog hair’ she said, she combs hair from her sisters greyhounds and places it around the area of the grave and plants, she reckons the rabbits smell the dog hair and believe it could still be close so they go and eat someone else’s plants. Maybe this theory can be transferred to other predators, i.e essence of cat to keep vermin away, essense of foxhound etc etc. Maybe these products are already on the market somewhere, please let me know if you know of any.

 I’m am faced with a tricky one when it comes to the swamp hens, as if it repells them it may repell the girls too, maybe a visual deterant might be better, like a cut out of a cat in the garden, a scarecat mounted on a spring to give it movement.

I raced out this morning apon hearing one of the girls doing her best alarm call yet, not to find Pukeko’s raiding the nest or rats stealing their food, but all the noise was to alert me to the fact that the chicks were out roaming the garden, Nancy the ‘ Boss’ was most upset that the chicks were in HER garden, was wasn’t happy until i had put them back into the brooder, infact she wasn’t happy then either as she stood infront of the brooder reading out more of the riot act to the chicks, until some feed was produced and she forgot all about it.