How it started for myself, Pre 1990

One activity that i missed since leaving the agricultural industry in 1990 is ratting. This was great fun for both us and the dogs, as well as cutting back on the massive cost of damage caused by rats. Our own farm became badly infested within two years. The buildings were all new and built out in the middle of fields, where the next nearest buildings of any description were about three quarters of a mile away. The rats were already multiplying in the fields where they spread themselves further away from the neighbours during their life spans.

Our sheds were built initially for machinery storage, calf rearing and potatoes as this was our winter crop. We always saw the odd rat during day to day activities where the dogs would do a pretty good job catching them. After emptying the one shed from potatoes after our first year, we started to clear out all the straw bales that we used to line the walls to protect the potatoes from the frost that came through the walls. Immediately, every bale we moved, there were on average six rats underneath it. A job that should have taken an hour, took us all day as we were running round trying to kill rats. That day, we caught around a hundred rats with at least a hundred getting away. All of us exhausted including the dogs, falling about in laughter discussing the day's events on what each other looked like chasing a rat with a shovel or a plastic pipe. That was the beginning of our rat problem.

Once we cleared all the straw bales and cleaned up the mess that we intially set out to do, we put the bales back in a neat stack to attract the rats back. At the back of the shed, we had calves which were ready to be put out to the field. The front of the calf area were large steel feeding troughs that required the tractor to move them. We were feeding the calves brewer's grain which is the leftover barley from the brewery. This turned out to be an ideal feed for rats, so when we started to move the first trough, about 30 rats jumped out. There were five troughs in total so we knew we had an ongoing problem. We put the trough back into situ and made arrangements with friends, the young farmers club and locals to come around on the weekend to have our first ratting day. What a day that was.

We built temporary barriers with anything we could get our hands on to prevent rats from getting away and giving ourselves and the dogs a better chance of catching every rat. We had about eight dogs in total, terriers and spaniels. We slowly moved each feeding trough and the rats piled out in their droves. Once we moved all the troughs, we then started digging into the muck with the JCB that had built up about 3ft in height. Each scoop again produced rats from all angles. It was Rat Metropolis. If memory serves me right, i think we had around 160 rats that day. We still had the straw to tackle but left that for another day.

Up to that point, we had no idea of the number of rats that had settled into the sheds. We Knew we had a good quanity but not hundreds.

Once we had the shed mucked out, we moved all the machinery out, blocked off all the small nooks and crannies to any exits and got the guys back for another day ratting. This time, we tackled the straw bales again. Under every straw bale, there were rats from one to five on each lift. We were all going crazy chasing rats. We lost a few but again we had killed somewhere around the hundred mark again.

One of our regular customers was a chicken farm. We knew his place was infested as what ever we moved there or dug, rats were emerging from everywhere. We used to haul and spread all his manure from his farm. You be driving down the road and you could see the rats in your mirror peeping over the side of the trailer debating whether they should stay or jump. As we had so much fun at our own farm we knew more fun could be had at the chicken farm. The rats there were bigger. In fact huge. I have never seen bigger rats anywhere else other than this chicken farm. It was impossible to fence areas off as it was so open, but plenty of space giving the dogs every opportunity to catch them. Our first day there, we had about a dozen guys and about fifteen dogs, mostly terriers with a couple of spaniels. From memory i think we had around 300 rats that day. That was from just around two chicken sheds, poking holes, digging away with the JCB and moving all types of rubbish on the floor. The farm had nine chicken sheds in total with plenty more sheds for other stock, silage pits, slurry pits and the hedgerows. There was no shortage of rats.

We continued going there for months for weekend activity. Even when we were contracting there, we would stay on the extra hour after work for our enjoyment of ratting. Just great fun. Very addictive.

That was back in the late 80's. So much more happened with ratting on our own farm as we expanded the buildings along with the chicken farm we were at regularly and some other farms that had similar situations. During the spring, summer and autumn it was difficult to get everyone together as we were all busy doing our harvesting. Once winter set back in, we had more time and the following year we had more girls and boys from our young farmers club joining us. Only wish we had thought about filming our events back then.

I do return to south wales once a month for family and business reasons where i do call in to see old customers and friends. I have made contact with a rat pack based in south wales who i hope i can join and introduce them to the chicken farm. The farm stopped doing chickens fifteen years ago where the sheds are now used as caravan storage. There is no way the rats have disappeared so i will be calling in on my next visit home to say hello and see if i can get there with the local rat pack.

I will update after each event. Keep watching

Social media:

My heart has never left the agriculutral industry. I live in SE london, not far from Tower Bridge, where we have the old developed docklands now modernised into a new modern residential area. We have a large rural green area close by that produces many healthy foxes. In a way, it feels like being home living in the countryside.

I have regulaly stayed in touch with old customers and friends where i also attend many shows around the country when time allows. To help stay in touch with the farming industry and the countryside, i joined many groups on social media where there are several ratting groups that operate nationwide. I have followed all these groups over the years and so much wanting to join them on their activities. Once a group is formed, they keep to their maximum numbers and not allowing anyone else join unless you can get involved with the physical side of the activity. Having not been able to join any groups, i advertised in the ratting groups to find others in the area to form the London and South East Rat Pack in May 2020. Within a few days, we had several members on board with dogs with a couple of others joing shortly after. Not everyone can be available on dates so it is always handy to have others to keep the numbers up.

The facebook LSE Rat Pack group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/250454776204282/

Finding Permissions:

Once i had the group set up, I started emailing any fruit and veg growers, poultry units, pig units, horse stables, farm shops and waste recycling plants that i could find using google, in the home counties. A couple replied saying that they were ok but would keep our details, many not replying at all with one farmer asking us to call in as he had plenty of the fluffy darlings.

Farmers tend not to have websites unless they do something specific that warrants a website for sales of their own produce.

First permission and site visit - 8th June 2020:

I arranged a day to visit the farmer with another group member Luke. Luke already works in pest control and very knowledgeable about rats. The premises is a mixed farm of chickens, pigs, dairy, sheep as well as a farm shop and childrens play area in Kent. Having a walk around with the farmer, all we saw was holes everywhere. he also had a chicken shed in the field that is sat on skids, with the muck busting out of the sides. What happens is that the shed is moved around by having it towed with the tractor. When the chicken muck gets high underneath, the shed is towed to another position allowing chickens to have fresh grass and ground to feed in and the muck from where the shed was previously, it collected and spread as fertilizer on the fields. There are plenty of videos on youtube that show several rat packs attacking similar scenarios.

Example here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OfaLZXcxd0

The farmer has had several pest control companies in to try and combat his increasing rat population. The problem is that pest control, only supply bait boxes which catch only one rat at a time of have blocks of poison inside them which dont really work as the rat adapts itself to come immune from poisons. Nobody is actually setting traps that catch rats alive in multiple numbers. This is where we come in. In discussions with the farmer, we will see what we can catch to establish the next move. I have ideas to build home made traps that are sure to impress.

I have arranged for three of us to attend the farm Monday evening coming, air rifles and nights copes. We are going to site for 7pm until late and see what we can achieve.

We have then planned a day with all group members and their dogs for Saturday 20th June. Report to follow.

Highly recommended video to watch:

I found this documentry last week online. Highly recommended viewing to educate yourself on rats. Set in New York and narrated by a retired pest controller with a Tony Soprano like character. It also has a short chapter on an UK based rat pack in England who also use dogs for ratting. What put me off a bit, is the part of where they have fimed in Cambodia, showing rats being caught, sold to restaurants, being prepared for meals then being served on a plate with garnish, then being eaten as a signiture dish. yuck.

Documentry can be seen here: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g-VguRu190&t=1889s

The rest of the Team:

I will be collecting photos of the other team members when we meet with their dogs next week. Each team member will be introduced to you.