permaculture

[Claude Genest <genest@together.net>]

I had quite a preponderance of rats accumulatiing on my property over the
last two years.... They were loving the availability of organic chicken
food... I decided to take a "wait and see approach" figuring that if there
was an abundance of prey it would inevitably attract a predator....

So, I kept looking up - figuring there would soon come a saviour from the
sky - owl, eagle, hawk, falcon.... The one day I looked down - Yeehah !
Biggest Gartner snake I ever saw ( used to catch them as a kid )..... ( see
pic)
Now I began to watch the snake interact with my chickens  - figured he was a
goner for sure, but he held his own ( no, I didn't check his sex...) ....
Then I watched how the snake goes into the rat's layer and awaits their
return.... Rat problem now under control !

New dilemma: haven't seen the snakes in a while, wonder what's eating them ?

Claude

> From: Loren Davidson <loren@farwalker.com>
> Reply-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Fri, 09 Aug 2002 08:52:10 -0700
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Gopher control
> 
> At 06:57 AM 8/9/02 -0500, Mark wrote:
>> Their their burrows are pretty shallow, you may be able to flush them out
>> with a garden hose and catch them in a snare or net for
>> relocation.  Having said that it's completely unethical IMO to "relocate"
>> a pest you don't want to some one elses farm or garden.
> 
> Given how many plants - including fruit trees - I have lost to gophers over
> the years, I have absolutely no qualms about "relocating" them to the
> gopher afterlife, sorry John, by any means that doesn't imperil other
> species in the vicinity.
> 
> I have one acquaintance who has remarked, "I hear that garlic-stuffed
> gopher is delicious." :)  Sounds to me like an appropriate way to harvest
> surplus gophers.
> 
> That said, here are some bits by a southern CA gardener named Andrew Lopez,
> from his book "How to Heal the Earth In Your Spare Time" (Acres USA, ISBN:
> 0-911311-26-2).  I've found some of his suggestions to be really helpful,
> but haven't tried these yet.
> 
> Top-dressing with year-old horse manure has a repellant effect; they "don't
> like manure at all."  (I'm not sure this one works in practise, though the
> last gopher damage I had in a bed with horse manure may not have had enough
> of it to drive them away.)
> 
> One gopher-repellant formula he lists involves mixing equal parts tobacco
> dust, cayenne pepper, and diatomaceous earth (DE) and injecting this into
> an active gopher tunnel with the same type of injector you'd use to put
> poison into their tunnels.  He also claims that putting human hair in the
> tunnels will make gophers go away.
> 
> I don't agree with his recommendations for the battery- or wind-powered
> "gopher stakes."  In my experience, they only enrage the gophers, who
> become even more destructive.  And the little beasties tunnel right aroung
> "gopherspurge."
> 
> Build soil,
> 
> Loren
> 
>> At 10:45 PM 8/8/02 -0700, you wrote:
>>> Aloha,
>>> 
>>> Looking for tested methods of gopher control for a friend of mine in
>>> central coast CA, non-killing if possible.  Trench and wire mesh around
>>> the garden is a future option but not doable this year due to lack of
>>> time and/or money (how deep will they go, anyhow?).  So, repellent
>>> mixes, that sort of thing, for short-term relief until a longer-term
>>> solution can be implemented...
>>> 
>>> thanks,
>>> John S.
> 
> Loren Davidson        Earth steward, healer, singer/songwriter
> loren@farwalker.com   http://www.earthspring.org/loren/
> AIM: loren334     ICQ: 65291610
> Music: http://www.earthspring.org/lorendavidson/
> ***Ask me about Sunset Celebrations in Berkeley - next one 8/27***
> "Life goes on." - Sun Bear
> 
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