The amazing life and chronicles of Christian BS.

Rattus Norvegicus

For around 4 months now, we have been plagued by a family of rats (please excuse the dreadful, dreadful pun there), who insist upon calling our garden, and in particular the hen coop, their home. Time after time we have seen them running around the garden, stealing food from the bird trays, and on quite a regular basis, getting into the hen coop, and stealing some of the hen food. We always knpw when the rat is in with the hens, as when it can not be seen, the hens can be heard to scream; well, a hen’s equivalent of screaming anyway.

After several failed attempts at catching said rat, one of which accidentally trapped our resident robin in a rat trap, we decided to use a non-lethal trap. That is to say essentially, a cage with bait inside on a trigger which closes the entrance to the cage upon consumption. This morning, we appear to have finally caught the aforementioned rat, and it is currently being detained. Having said that, the only question remaining is what to do with the cretaure. We have several options:

• Plunge the cage into a large bucket of water, thereby drowning the rat.

• Swining the rat by the tail, causing blood vessels in the head, and more importantly in the brain, to burst; however this can lead to the grizzly result as has happened before, of having the rat’s body fly- off and you are left holding the tail.

• Releasing the rat into fields around 100m away from us.

• Beating after having released it into a closed bag.

• Smashing it with a spade.

This of course is only the first rat out of the family, but at least there is one less. For now. I must be off now, as I have much chemistry awaiting my pleasurable company.