Pest Control for the Smallholder E-Book

David Bezzant

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 229

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Among the many challenges facing the contemporary smallholder who keeps livestock and grows his own food, is how to deal with the various pests that are capable of decimating crops, degrading pasture, stealing produce, contaminating animal feed and killing valuable livestock. This book provides the smallholder with the knowledge and the information about the skills to meet this challenge in an effective and humane way.Considers all the major pests faced by smallholders including rats, house and field mice, grey squirrels, moles, rabbits, deer, foxes, mink, wood pigeons, crows and rooks. Discusses each pest in detail, arguing that it is essential for the smallholder to understand their characteristics and behaviour in order to control them successfully. Emphasizes that 'prevention is better than cure' and identifies a variety of measures designed to thwart, rather than kill, pests. Examines both traditional and modern pest control methods. Covers traps, poisons, air rifles, dogs, ferrets, electric fencing, bird scarers, wildlife deterrents and repellents, automatic bird feeders, and polytunnels and cloches. Stresses that smallholders need to adopt a comprehensive pest control programme that complies with current legislation and balances conservation with control. An invaluable and well-illustrated book that provides the smallholder with the knowledge required to deal efficiently and humanely with the various pests that present a constant challenge. Essential reading for small-scale farmers, smallholders and those with large gardens attached to properties in the countryside. Superbly illustrated with 146 colour photographs. David Bezzant has been a smallholder for all his adult life and is an expert on the use of old-fashioned forms of pest control.

Leseprobe

Pest Control for the Smallholder

David Bezzant

Copyright

First published in 2013 by The Crowood Press Ltd, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book edition first published in 2013

© David Bezzant 2013

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

ISBN 978 1 84797 516 4

Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge with gratitude the following for their co-operation in the preparation of this e-book: Claire McDermid of STV International, Richard Allum of Grandpa’s Feeders and Mrs Bernie Landshoff of the Domestic Fowl Trust.

Picture Credits All pictures are by the author, except where otherwise credited. Frontispiece: two Fenn traps used for despatching rats.

Disclaimer Traps, air rifles, poisons and all equipment and substances used in pest control should be used in strict accordance with both the law and the manufacturer’s instructions. The author and the publisher do not accept any responsibility in any manner whatsoever for any error or omission, or any loss, damage, injury, adverse outcome, or liability of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any of the information contained in this e-book, or reliance upon it. If in doubt about any aspect of pest control readers are advised to seek professional advice.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

1 The Importance of Pest Control for the Smallholder

2 The Pests and their Habits

3 Managing the Smallholding as a Form of Pest Control

4 The Pest Controller’s Armoury

5 How to Use Traps

6 How to Use Rat Poison

7 How to Use Air Rifles on the Smallholding

8 Using Dogs to Control Pests

9 How to Use Ferrets to Control Pests

10 How to Use Electric Fencing for Pest Control

11 Using Deterrents, Repellents and Bird Scarers

12 Feed Bins and Poultry Feeders

13 Protecting Crops and Trees

Index

chapter one

The Importance of Pest Control for the Smallholder

The ferret has a proven record of dealing with rodents.

INTRODUCTION

I had not been a smallholder for long when I was introduced to the task of pest control. In typical opportunistic fashion, rats were squatting under my chicken shed, which was a relic of post-war Britain and in places susceptible to the gnawing habit of rodents. On hearing of my trouble with these four-legged trespassers a nearby neighbour, who was a wise old countryman with a crumpled face, came to offer advice and presented me with a large tablespoon. I was slightly taken aback until he explained that it was for dispensing poison. When I explained to him that I wanted to use ferrets to deal with the rats he hastily headed home, promising to return with an antiquarian book which contained detailed information on how to mobilize my ferrets against the rats.

With the precious laying hens locked safely out of harm’s way, I nervously put my ferret’s nose in the mouth of the rat digging leading under the shed. Being fully aware that rats make fierce antagonists, I wondered whether they might make a stand and give my ferret a mauling. My worries were short-lived however, for no sooner had the ferret disappeared than the rats fled at great speed from their hideaway into the path of a waiting terrier.

Working terriers are instinctive pest catchers and will earn their keep on any smallholding.

This was the beginning of my amateur pest control apprenticeship, which has continued for twenty-five years. One of the first things that struck me was that I was practising an activity that is as old as time itself. Ever since man began to produce food by the cultivation of land and the keeping of livestock, he has had to deal with the undesired attention of animals which, in the process of securing their own comfort and satisfying their own appetites at man’s expense, earned the title of ‘vermin’ and later ‘pest’.

Successive generations from every country in the world had to find a way to deal with pests, which were, in some cases, even capable of threatening human life. Accounts of the destructive habits of pests appear in books ranging from the Bible, to the chronicles of American pioneers. In the latter case, Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the acclaimed Little House on the Prairie books, vividly describes the destruction of corn and oat crops caused by crows, and the drastic consequences this had for her family. Men like Charles Ingalls relied on the money earned by the crops to pay taxes and buy essential fuel in the winter to keep the family warm. Without a crop he was faced with the option of either using savings, or selling something valuable – in this case a cow – or risk losing his home, or his eldest daughter’s opportunity of going to college. With the stakes so high, it is not surprising that enterprising men throughout the ages developed an assortment of tools and devices aimed at preventing and minimizing damage caused by pests.

Traditional field sports, such as ferreting, justify their activity by controlling pests that are harmful to agriculture production.

In Britain the problems caused by vermin or pests were deemed serious enough to require the full-time employment of men to combat them. These men became masters of the trade of pest control and were given titles such as: ‘rat catcher’, ‘mole catcher’ or ‘warrener’, and boys were given the seasonal duty of scaring birds from crops using wooden clappers. In some circumstances pest control was left to field sports enthusiasts who, for example, would gladly assemble at a farm with packs of terriers, intent on driving rats from the hayricks, or conceal themselves in hides amidst crops, equipped with guns so that they could shoot pigeons and crows.

During the 1940s and early 1950s, when the rabbit was considered to be the greatest agricultural pest in Britain, a favourite hobby of many boys was ferreting and they could, during one season, catch thousands of rabbits. Amidst a torrent of controversy the hunt was, until recent times, commonly relied upon to control the population of foxes living in a particular district.

A selection of typical tools for the pest controlling smallholder.

The widespread employment of chemical poisons, which really took hold in the 1950s, ushered in the era of the modern pest control operative who commonly visits farms and industrial buildings. However, as effective as these lethal potions may be, it has long been recognized that an effective pest control programme depends just as much on circumspect management of the environment, buildings, livestock and animal provender.

Consequently, the daily routine of the farmer and smallholder incorporates vital elements of pest control. Spurred on by this awareness – and the many setbacks to their hopes and plans that pests can inflict – many smallholders have taken a keen interest in becoming their own pest controller, recognizing the advantage of being able to take swift action and select a method which complements their ethical and environmental outlook. For instance, there have always been, and continue to be, people who find the action and after-effects of rodenticides, most notably the secondary poisoning of wildlife, objectionable and would sooner avoid it.

It is also fair to say that a person without a thorough knowledge of the animals classified as pests and their various habits is liable to make what will, in the future, prove to be poor judgements concerning the organization of his smallholding and usage of outbuildings. Consequently, it is the intention of this book to equip the smallholder with the knowledge to take practical steps in order to deter pests and the skills to deal with any pests that do breach his defences. The information it contains is based on my own battle with the pests I have encountered during two decades running a smallholding and incorporates the traditional arts of ferreting and trapping, which I have been able to master thanks to the tutorage of elderly countrymen and many years of practice.

AIMS OF PEST CONTROL

For centuries gardeners, farmers and gamekeepers in this country have realized the necessity of taking measures to deal with pests and it is a reality that the smallholder of today also has to face. There is no doubt that the average smallholding boasts a treasure trove of delicacies that will attract pests from far and wide and these animals will, without hesitation or sympathy, destroy what many hours of hard work have attempted to achieve. The pest control industry can quote statistics which confirm this point of view; however, stark figures printed on a page fail to capture the disappointment felt by the smallholder when the promising vegetables that he has planted and nourished, are found to have been annihilated overnight by voracious rabbits; the annoyance felt when an egg is found that has been stolen and cracked by a magpie’s beak; or the sheer dismay of finding a lamb or hen killed by a fox.

As I have discovered, when it is your crops that are plundered or hen house that is raided, you cannot help taking the onslaught personally and, in some cases, blaming yourself for not taking sufficient precautions initially. In order to avoid such incidents happening, a comprehensive pest control programme will take steps to:

Protect vulnerable livestock such as poultry, new-born lambs and goat kids from predators.Protect vital vegetable, fruit and cereal crops, as well as pasture and woodland from damage. Safeguard the health of livestock by preventing the spread of animal-borne diseases and parasites, which are chiefly transmitted by rats and mice.Ensure that expensive livestock feeds are not stolen or contaminated by birds or rodents.Keep outbuildings in a good state of repair in order to deny pests easy access and harbourage.Promptly dispose of rubbish, which attracts pests.Comply with health and hygiene recommendations in an environment where home produce is gathered for consumption by the household, or members of the public.

This lamb, born blind, is a clear example of an animal vulnerable to predatory attack.

In order to achieve these objectives the resolute pest controller has an assortment of weapons in his armoury to select from. Essentially these will enable him to:

Eradicate pests when appropriate.Pest-proof areas that are at risk.Repel pests using scare tactics.

Vegetable growing is an integral part of smallholding.

Livestock feed is expensive and needs protecting from pests.

SKILLS OF THE PEST CONTROLLER

A great deal of pest control undertaken by the smallholder is nothing more than common sense, however, in order to be consistently successful it would be a great benefit for him to acquire the following:

A variety of pests will seek to make their homes in dry, warm outbuildings.

A thorough understanding of the wildlife inhabiting the environment in which he lives, to ensure that he is capable of identifying any problems that they are capable of causing and take appropriate preventative action.The ability to read tracks, trails and droppings left by animals in order to spot the first signs of a pest’s presence and correctly attribute any damage that has been caused. Correct identification of any pest is a prerequisite for selecting the most suitable response.An understanding of the assortment of different methods of control available to the general public, so that the right one is chosen for the particular problem he is confronted with. This includes knowing the finer details involved in: laying poisons, setting traps, shooting air rifles and putting up electric fences; as well as being fully aware of any dangers they may pose to human health or animals – other than the target species – so that appropriate precautions are taken.The skills of a competent stockman so that he is able to fulfil his obligation of care to his animals and identify any of their habits that will act like a magnet for pests.

The smallholder should identify natural features on his land where pests can live, such as this gorse bush, which conceals a rabbit warren.

THE LAW AND PEST CONTROL

In addition to the skills already mentioned, it is of paramount importance for the smallholder to be conversant with the many laws dealing with the subject of pest control. The most relevant of these are:

The Pests Act of 1954The Animal Welfare Act of 2006The Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981The Spring Traps Approval Order of 1995The Control of Pesticide Regulations of 1986The Animals By Product Regulations of 2003

Poultry eggs left uncollected act as magnets to magpies.

Food remains and water bowls attract rodents and birds.

Essentially the combined objective of these laws is to ensure that all the animals identified as pests are treated as humanely as possible, and that both non-target species and the environment are afforded adequate protection. In practical terms they aim to achieve this by providing strict guidelines on the following:

The particular methods that may be used to deal with pests, for example: poison cannot be used against birds and can only be used on rats and mice without a special licence. Only traps that have been approved by MAFF (now known as DEFRA) may be used and any measures taken to deter protected animals must not disturb their home environment.How these various methods are employed, for instance: when spring traps are employed they should be placed in tunnels, to avoid catching anything other than the pest in question; when cage traps are used they must be checked at least once every twenty-four hours.How to kill pests: this must be done as quickly as possible, with no unnecessary stress or suffering being inflicted on the pest. For this reason, the practice of drowning animals caught in a trap is strictly prohibited.How to dispose of dead animals: this must be done in a safe manner so that the bodies of rats, for example, cannot be eaten by wildlife and cause secondary poisoning which has, in the past, been identified as a cause of death in barn owls.

As well as providing what is, in essence, a code of conduct for the amateur pest controller, the law also offers a clear impetus for action by stating that a householder or landowner must control the pests resident on his property. In the event that he fails to do so, the council will take appropriate action, with the householder/landowner covering the expense. A willingness to comply with this recommendation is not merely a matter of sound judgement, it also leads to sensitive stewardship of the land and environment. To allow any type of pest to establish itself unchecked in any location will not only spell trouble for the smallholder, it will also exert an unnatural pressure on the surrounding flora, fauna and wildlife. The most notable example of this is probably the demise of the red squirrel due to the proliferation of its grey relative.

Safety measures play an important part in pest control. Two examples are the inclusion of blue dye in poison and the insistence on placing spring traps within tunnels.

The recommendations framed by the various laws may, at first sight, give the impression that pest control is all about exterminating nuisance animals. However, this is far from the whole story. Of course, every smallholder will face many situations when the deliberate killing of a pest is the only reasonable course of action; however, he will also encounter just as many other situations when a non-lethal method can be applied with the same measure of success. Some of the strategies that can be employed by the smallholder may come as a bit of a surprise to someone new to the subject of pest control. For instance, offering wildlife a bit more from the land, in terms of uncultivated corridors around fields may, in some cases, prevent an animal from becoming a pest in the first place.

Small holes may be dug approximately 30cm deep for the disposal of poisoned rats and mice.

This immature rabbit (top right of photo), grazing the rough ground of the chicken run, did not need controlling because it posed no threat to the chickens and was not damaging pastureland or crops.

chapter two

The Pests and their Habits

As I immersed myself in the task of pest control I realized that, just as a hunter or fisherman has a knowledge born of experience of the animals that he seeks, I would also have to find out as much as I could about the common pests that I could expect to encounter if I was going to stand any chance of controlling their activities.

I quickly gleaned a great deal of information from an assortment of interesting books with titles such as Mammals of Britain, Their Tracks, Trails and Signs, which prompted me to spend time observing the wild animals and birds around me. As a smallholder with an interest in pest control I asked myself the following questions as I watched them:

Where do they make their homes?What do they feed on?During what time of day or night are they most active?Can they climb, squeeze through small gaps or chew holes in wood?What signs do they leave on the ground indicative of their presence?

The answers to these questions would, in turn, help me to take informed and decisive action to deal with any pests. They would also provide the basis for the information contained in this chapter, along with an analysis of whether the harm that animals classified as pests cause is, in certain situations, outweighed by any good they do, in terms of predating other pests and eating insects harmful to crops.

In Britain there are a small number of pests capable of killing poultry and ducks, others that damage immature woodland and those that eat crops. However, we shall start our study with an impudent, disease-carrying thief, which is unquestionably the most despised and dreaded pest of all – the rat.

THE RAT

Ever since the brown rat, also known as the Norwegian rat, arrived in Britain around 1760, it has had the capacity to turn robust men and indomitable women into quivering wrecks, in spite of the fact that it is no more than 25cm long, including the tail, and weighs 200g, which is roughly 300 times less than the average adult. Is the panic they engender therefore totally irrational, or do we have just cause for being especially wary of the rat?

Following its introduction the brown rat quickly spread throughout the British Isles and, in the process, displaced the plague-carrying black rat, which had brought so much sorrow to families across the land, especially during the seventeenth century. The supplanting of the black rat by the brown was aided by improvements in rubbish disposal and sanitation, and a shift from building in wood to brick and stone.

Areas that are left to grow wild will provide cover for pests, however, some will also find their food in such places instead of eating crops.

It did not take long, however, for the brown rat to make a nuisance of itself in both the town and the countryside. Those whose job it was to deal with the burgeoning population of brown rats succumbed to a mystery illness, which became known as ‘rat catcher’s yellows’, owing to the colour of the sufferers, who rarely survived more than a week from the time they contracted the disease. The ‘yellows’, or Weil’s disease to give it its correct medical name, remains with us today, with the brown rat being the principal carrier of the disease, although the number of fatalities in recent years is minuscule in comparison to the numbers who succumbed during the nineteenth century, when people were far less cautious about handling rats. While there are an assortment of alarming tales relating experiences of being bitten by ferocious rats it is, above all, the disease-carrying characteristic that threatens the health of humans and their livestock, which has earned the brown rat the unabated and warranted antipathy of man.

Consequently, the chief reason for controlling rats is to prevent the spread of disease, which is transmitted in their urine and excreta, and thus safeguard our own health and that of the valuable animals we rely upon to provide us with food. As a result of the study of epidemiology, medical researchers have highlighted groups of people who are more at risk from Weil’s disease than the general public. The list includes sewage workers, which most of us would expect but a startling fact is that more farmers than sewage workers have contracted the disease in recent years. This highlights how careful the smallholder has to be, since the environment in which he lives and tends his stock is markedly similar to that of the farmer.

Whether you regard it as an opportunistic feeder or a thief, the rat will, given the slightest chance, plunder the grain store and raid the poultry shed in order to satisfy its appetite. Although there are accounts, verified with some remarkable photographs, of industrious rats stealing eggs from chicken sheds, they are more likely to concentrate their energies on the many grain derivatives that are fed to livestock. In the process of eating, rats will contaminate the grain with their hair, faeces and urine and so render it unsafe for livestock consumption. It is estimated that in a year one rat will produce as much as 6 l of urine and 15,000 droppings and shed approximately 300,000 hairs; it therefore has the capacity to ruin many costly bags of stored grain if left unchecked. The loss of 20 per cent of the world’s stored grain to rats, perfectly illustrates this point.

The typical gnawing damage of a rodent attempting to gain access to a barn.

To get at what they want determined rats will, with their incredibly sharp and powerful teeth, gnaw their way through wood and have been known to penetrate 5cm piping to get at water. Their capacity to gnaw at anything that gets in their way, combined with their ability to scale walls and burrow under floors, means that there are few places they are not capable of gaining access to and they have rightly been described as ruthless destroyers of property. Investigations have revealed that fire damage and burst water pipes in many farm buildings is attributable to resident rats chewing through electric cables and plastic pipes.

Unfortunately, there is no getting away from rats: they are as common in the town as they are in the countryside and as much at home on a farm as in an industrial warehouse, which is why they are considered one of the most adaptable mammals in the world. On the farm or smallholding rats tend to live in burrows along hedgerows and ditches, underneath sheds and in hay ricks and farm buildings. However, they have no rule book to abide by when establishing a home for themselves and, in typical feats of initiative, will utilize whatever materials are available. I have encountered rats living in log piles, under the tarpaulin of a covered muck heap, beneath corrugated metal sheets that were left lying on the ground and in cavities dug through the lime render between the rocks of a hard granite wall. They do possess a keenness for making their nests at ground level, with a supply of water nearby which they cannot do without. This water source may be a stream, ditch, drain, pond, leaking pipe or animal drinker and, in their desire to drink, many juvenile rats have been found drowned in buckets of water in stables and goat houses.

Old stone walls near poultry and fowl make ideal homes for rats.

Essentially rats search for somewhere to nest where they will remain warm, dry and go unnoticed. They choose a site where they will not have to travel far to secure their daily requirement of food and water, and the less open ground they have to cross in the process the better. Typically they do not like wandering more than 50m from their nests and will follow established paths, usually along walls or hedges, to and from their destination. Peak times of activity are at dusk and during the night, which is why some old countrymen used to routinely take their dogs outdoors just as it was getting dark and conduct what they referred to as a ‘rat patrol’. In this manner the well known writer and countryman, Phil Drabble, with the assistance of his two dogs, accounted for 200 rats in one year. The sight of rats during daylight hours is usually indicative of a substantial infestation or, in the case of a single rat, a sick animal.

A disused barn with thick straw left on the ground will provide an ideal home for rats.

Within the nest rats multiply speedily, with a pair of rats being capable of producing eighty offspring in just one year. As rats can breed when they are ten weeks old and have on average six litters a year, it is easy to see how just two rats could lay the foundation for a colony of many thousands and, being naturally gregarious, they are quite content to live communally. The rapidity with which rats can increase in number is a problem because there are always more to fill the space left by those that are trapped, poisoned or shot and current estimates are that there are a minimum of eighty million rats in Britain.

Fortunately for the pest controller, rats leave an assortment of signs that are easy to identify, which prove their presence on a property. In addition to the damage caused by gnawing alluded to earlier these signs include:

Droppings – these are large and cylindrical in shape, measuring 17mm by 6mm. An assortment of different-sized droppings is suggestive of a breeding colony.Smears – this refers to greasy marks or stains left on solid objects, owing to the rats’ preference for moving with their bodies in direct contact with the objects.Tracks – footprints will register in mud, dust and snow, with feet pointing outwards and a typical stride of 9–10cm.Runs – these are narrow, well trodden paths, approximately 10–15cm wide, that are clearly visible in any vegetation around or near outbuildings.

The rat is a very cautious animal by nature and is sensitive to any changes that occur in the environment it has grown accustomed to; this fact must be borne in mind when laying poisons or setting traps. A rat’s reaction whenever it comes face to face with humans is always to flee, which it tends to do at considerable speed. It was while I was watching some rats escaping from a barn that I realized what small gaps they