Re: Vermin

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, nuele 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> Krys Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, nuele
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> > >Krys Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > >
> > >aargh, voles, don't start me on voles! >:-(
> >
> > You have a problem with them?
>
> A few years ago, I had a little nursery garden with maybe thirty apple
> tree seedlings, and I went around the countryside and looked for old and
> rare apple varieties, had them identified by a pomologist. The year
> after, I went to take some twigs from the trees on my list, "operated
> upon" the seedlings and did what we call "oculation", i.e. put an "eye"
> of the good variety under the bark of the seedling (sorry I don't know
> the exact technical terms in English). Then I had about thirty little
> treasures in my little garden for maybe three years, and then one spring
> I found the voles had come and chewed off nearly all their roots. I was
> able to rescue maybe four or five...

What a shame, I can imagine how upsetting that was. What a lovely idea 
having old & rare types of apples.

I used to live in an old black & white timber frame farm house, the 
surrounding land which had gone with the farm had been sold to a 
neighbouring farmer. The beautiful old orchard, where lots of little 
birds lived, had belonged to the farm but now belonged to the neighbour, 
the apples were small & very tasty but browned very quickly. (I'm told 
that this happens much less with modern apples.) One day the neighbour 
brought his digger into the orchard & knocked ever single old tree down, 
took out the lovely old hedges & joined the area onto his grain fields. 
The grain fields were pretty too but it did seem a shame to kill the 
trees & remove the habitat for the little birds.

> (... after that I started to plant everything in buckets, for the joy
> and pleasure of all the archaeologists that will dig here in a few
> hundred years from now ;-)
>
>
> > The 'black' or 'ship' rats are supposed to be pretty rare these days.
> > Though like the Norway rats they can still produce large litters every
> > 21 days when there is a good food source. You're lucky to have them near
> > you. I haven't seen any for years, I always liked them, they're
> > relatively innocuous, though still carry diseases. I'd much sooner have
> > them than the Norway rats.
>
> Yes indeed, no one seems to mind them really, at least not more than
> mice.
>
> > Do you have all of the colours? Black is the
> > most numerous of the colours (called Rattus rattus rattus), then there's
> > brown with cream underneath (Rattus rattus frugiverus) & the least
> > numerous, brown with grey underneath (Rattus rattus alexandrinus).
>
> hm, as I said, I rarely ever see them. From the leftovers I found in my
> garden I think they are the black ones, although not as black as a mole,
> there is a little bit of grey in it, but still black. I never knew there
> were brown black rats ;-) but you could still tell whether it is a brown
> brown or a brown black rat by the lenght of the tail, couldn't you?

I used to think (haven't thought of them for years) that R.rattus was 
like the thoroughbred of the rats. They are slimmer, sleeker, larger 
ears & eyes, more pointy face, longer tail, faster & more athletic, 
altogether a more attractive rodent than R.norvegicus. If chewed up I 
expect that the tail or ears would still show.
> Nuele (D)

--

Regards


Krys
www.lluestfarmpoultry.co.uk