Betapest

  We keep a few chickens at the bottom of the garden, which if you have ever kept chickens yourself, you will already know comes with a fairly predictable side effect. Rats. Henfield being as rural as it is, surrounded by farmland and paddocks , it was probably only a matter of time before something turned up looking for an easy meal, but I still did not expect it to escalate as quickly as it did.   It started with a hole under the coop I put down to a fox at first, then droppings along the fence line a week or so later, and then one evening I actually saw one, a proper brown rat, bold as anything, wandering along the base of the run in broad daylight. That is usually a sign there are more where that one came from, since brown rats tend to only get that confident once a population has settled in properly.   Why  Henfield  gardens seem to attract them   Talking to a couple of neighbours afterwards, it turns out I was not the only one. Between allotments,...