Hanging Rats

First of all, sorry for the poor quality of photo. I was stopped in a layby when I saw this to quickly snap it!

I've often seen this where I used to live down in the Scottish Borders. Today, work took me down that way again, and I noticed the line of dead rats tied up on a farmers fence.

Rats are the biggest pest problem a farmer faces, as a rodent family can eat the crops in a very short time and also reproduce at an unbelievable rate.

So the farmers best friends are the prey birds like falcons and hawks which eat the rodents. When a gamekeeper kills a rodent, he hangs them on the farmers fence to firstly entice more prey birds to the area, and also so that they will come and eat the mice/rat/rodents in his fields so his crops survive and he can get the highest yield.

In days gone by, this technique was also used by gamekeepers to show how many pests had been killed, as the farmer would pay per kill. This isn't the case anymore, and the pests are hung up solely to attract birds of prey to the area.

Hope you enjoyed your country life lesson for the day!

AV