permaculture

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

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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