Edited by author 02-04-2002 10:04 AM
When I was a kid, I lived on a farm. One of my jobs was to rid the hay barns of rats.

I think this came from the fact that I was afraid of rats, and my father said we should confront our fears (this was the mid seventies if that helps).

We discovered a couple of fool proof ways to do this task. First was to get my mother to fry chopped wine cork in the juices of cooked minced beef. We would sprinkle this in the walkways and tracks and the rats would happily eat it and wander off home. The cork swelled up inside them, and they died a horrible death. (I didn't say these were nice ways to kill rats, btw.)

The other way took more planning, and was even more evil. We took an oak barrel, and placed a house brick standing on it's end at the bottom, and filled the barrel with water up to the level of the brick. Then we covered the barrel with a tarpaulin and sprinkled a big pile of seed on the tarp. A plank leaning against the side of the barrel made a walkway up to the top of the barrel and we sprinkled grain down the plank.

First rat comes in, sees the trail of grain, follows it up the barrel and sits there, eating his fill. Rats, being social animals, share the wealth, and pretty soon they get used to using this new eating hole.

After a few days, we cut an X in the cop of the tarp, almost to the edge of the barrel, and put a ring of grain around the top of the barrel so it looks normal from the ground.

First rat comes back, scampers up the plank and sploshes into the water. Being a social beast, he cries and cries and cries and a rescuer will come.

He sploshes into the water and find that there's only enough room on that brick for one rat.


So they forget about rescue and fight to the death. This carries on and you are left with a barn with no rats, a barrel full of dead rats and one, mean nasty king rat sitting on the pile.

At this point, the barrel was dragged into the courtyard and torched.