A ROBBER RAT

Hokitika Guardian, 12 November 1930, Page 6

A ROBBER RAT

THIRTY-EIGHT PULLETS. UNDERGROUND STORE. Thirty-eight very young pullets were killed and stacked away in the larder of a big grey rat which has been hunting among the hen-coops in Opawa Christchurch, before his activities wer§ discovered. The owner of the poultry took swift retribution. The damage was done in three weeks, according to “The Sun.” The rat lulled the pullets, lie dragged the corpses down his tunnel till he came to the cave which he had dug for himself underground, lie put them all neatly, tightty-packed like sardines, oil a shelf in that cave, and then lie came struggling and leaping out into a jet of water being played from a hose, and a large and heavy length of piping found its billet and ended the career of the marauder. And Air E. Crouch need worry no longer about the safety of his chickens! Air Crouch, who is a tram-con-ductor, breeds and raises fowls at his home in Opawa. About six weeks ago he put 150 day-old chicks under a brooder in No. 1 pen. The pens are used for birds of varying ages. When he came to separate ' the cockerels from the pullets of the batch under the brooder in No. 1 pen, Air Crouch thought that there did not seem to be as big a muster of pullets a s there should have been. However, lie gave no great heed to the matter at that time.

Then, after he had left for work early in the morning, his son, going round the pens, found two dead pullets lying in No. 5 pen. No. 5 pen was some distance from No. 1 pen, and it was hard to understand how the, pullets had reached the spot where they were lying. 'When his attention was drawn to the mystery of the two dead pullets, Mr Crouch began to investigate. Just inside the door of No. 5 pen he found freshly-turned dirt, and then, following up this elite, a hole in the ground. He secured the garden hose, a 150 ft. length, and started to play the full pressure of water down the rat-hole. There was plenty of pressure, but it was only after the water had been flowing for over 10 minutes that the rat was driven from his lair and dealt with. f&t M