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  • From: "John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Will you help describe this pattern?
  • Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 23:02:48 -0000


Rats are athletes. I have not found a way to create barriers that works. In the past we had rats eating every last pea of what would normally have given us about 100 kilos of dried peas in less than a week. We trapped them and shot them and driven to desperation I electrified all access routes. They then climbed a 15 foot elderberry tree and jumped from there over all the electric cables into the peas (ten foot high). Other years they would eat all the skirret then all the beetroot.
We found that rats exterminate one crop at a time. Only when there is nothing left of one crop do they move on to something else. Even if there is no food in your barn, they will get it outside and drag it to their nests. Even if they have to climb up a concrete wall 4 meters high.

What did cure our rat problem was diet coke and it's artificial sweeteners. I have just three pet drink bottles hanging up around the gardens and about 2 liters of diet coke will do us for a year. It is not the gas for I refill the bottles only when they get empty. Rats love it, mice or voles don't touch it. And the rat numbers are completely down.
john

This year I've been dealing with rats in my barnyard. I'm not
looking for help dealing with that problem: I'm trying to articulate
the pattern I'm seeing within the rubric of permaculture.

The specific scenario:

I have a pest[1] (brown rats) that have taken up residence in my
barn. I have used traps as a control[2], and I've recently taken
to hunting them too. As I've hunted them, I noticed that they've
used the barnyard environment in a way I hadn't considered/been
aware of. Building paths and finding routes. Many of these paths
emerged because of design decisions I'd made: they favor walls,
narrow passages, and dark places.

I'm working to introduce more barriers[3] to prevent access to
areas I'd rather they not be in. But this feels underwhelming as
a description of what is happening at the system-level.

In the permaculture rubric, what am I doing? What pattern is this?
What phrase describes this activity? Again, not looking for advice
on rats: I'm looking for hooks I can use to describe these
interactions and help model the patterns.

Thank you!

-Alan

1: http://sunflowerriver.org/wiki/Pest
2: http://sunflowerriver.org/wiki/Control
3: http://sunflowerriver.org/wiki/Barrier
--
.i ma'a lo bradi cu penmi gi'e du
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