Pest Control for the Smallholder

David Bezzant

• Publisher: Crowood
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781847975164
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Environmental Management
• Index: Technology & Engineering

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.

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...