“R.A.T.S. is in!! Let’s roll.” Laura finished reading the email from her phone at farmer lunch. It’s opening line “The human and canine members of R.A.T.S. hereby accept your wonderful invitation to visit Vermont” along with the subsequent promise to bring “dogs, our patented rat smoker, and a truck load of enthusiasm” had prompted gut-felt utterances and gleeful giggles. The mood at the farm hadn’t recovered in the days since we discovered the predator strike on our two day-old turkey poults. We had lost 2/3rds of the flock that fateful day in June.
Ryder Alley Trencherfed Society (R.A.T.S) on the Farm
We’d faced poultry predation before… fox, owl, hawk, fisher, weasel and domesticated dog had all impacted our flocks in the last 10 years. But for us rats were a new villain.
Predator strikes always leave us with an air of unease. But this round was deeply haunting. We had known of their presence and protected the grain. We were naïve about their carnivorous/omnivorous habits. It felt to me like a rooky mistake and I wasn’t alone having trouble shaking this one off. It was as if the emotional tangle resulted from muscle memory of millennia of out-smarting and out-scurrying each other as we co-evolved.
We had immediately broken our rules about livestock in the house, the remaining turkeys moved to the mudroom and then the safety of the front yard while we began to search for safe responses to the crisis.
Our pets, other livestock as well as our wild friends, especially Barred and Great horn owls, together with our farm’s core ecological and humanetarian ethic, leave the option of poison off the table. Kill traps had already been aggressively and creatively employed.
Laura’s google search introduced us to the delightfully relevant “JREED and his Mongrol herd”. Their farm focus and accomplishments are inspiring. And the website well resourced! But they are in Oregon.
Closer to home, but in no way near, she found the indomitable R.A.T.S., The Ryders Alley TrencherFed Society. With a tagline “Working Terriers doing what they do best” these dedicated folks focus on the importance of giving the working dogs opportunities to do what they were bred to do.
And roll they did! After an attempt to gather in August didn’t work out our anticipation grew last week as vehicles from NY, NJ and MA arrived for a snowy weekend of work.
Over the centuries and decades farm aid has taken many forms. Every once in a while when Laura and I need to buck up for some challenge at breakfast we will chide each other with the line “wonder twins activate in the form of ___”. But we needed outside help this time and as Nancy, Richard, Bill, Judy, David, Susan,Will, Terry and Brooke emerged from truck, van and car they looked like superheros to us. And the dogs. Well, it was worker-to-worker solidarity and love-like appreciation at first sight. It is our pleasure to introduce them to you below!
Yanni Digging…on command!
The team searching
In the end, the help of this talented pack of dogs and their committed owners, determined to keep working dogs working, empowered us with tons of new knowledge and their dedication and good-spirits refilled our wells of hope.
River going in…
Moz has found one
Together we found lots of synergies –heritage breeds, heirloom seeds and working breeds have lots in common…but only few rats.
Why? Our visitors figure we may never have had as many as we feared, farmers and our ecosystem reduced the population and food sources disappeared with the season. Still, the rats had homefield advantage over the dogs due to drainage systems around the barn built into the spring-laden hill, rustic rock retaining walls and “resource piles”.
But as snow fell on the group we knew within weeks livestock will begin to move back into the barns. Rats may well move in with them. After all they have successfully migrated and adapted with every human civilization and live on all continents, but they will be demystified and will have less power. And maybe Uno will soon enough have an “earth” dog to compliment his herding dogness. And these country mouses can call on our new city mouse friends at any time… and they’ll come rolling… R.A.T.S. wants to return to Vermont and I think we won’t be the only farm they visit!
Paco investigating the holes in the Brussels Sprout Field
Check out more of Bill Reyna’s amazing photos on the R.A.T.S Facebook page
And if you need some good video distraction – check out the working dog team in action in New York City on BBC News video and HBO.