DCFRN Hints

Backgrounder

A
Nearly every farmer in the world has a problem with rats at some time or other. There are many different ways of dealing with this problem. Witoon Uan-cham-roon of the Appropriate Technology Association in Thailand knows a simple way to control rats. He says that many Thai farmers cut up the leaves and stems of several kitchen mint plants (mentha cordiphobia) and crush them. They put these leaves in a pot of water and boil the water. The juice from the mint goes into the water. The more mint juice there is in the water the better. After the pot has cooled, the Thai farmers spray or paint the mixture in places where the rats go. Rats do not like the smell of the mint mixture so they will go away and not come back as long as the mint smell is around.

B
A farmer in Thailand provides good feed at no cost for the fish in his fish pond. This farmer built several small platforms about 1 metre (3 feet) above the water in his pond. Each platform is about 1 metre (3 feet) square, made of irregular bamboo or bush poles. The farmer keeps pigs, so he has lots of pig manure. He mixes heavy pig manure with compost and puts piles of the mixture on the platforms. This attracts flies that then lay their eggs in the manure. Soon the eggs hatch and, as the larvae or maggots move about in the pile on the platform, they fall through cracks into the water. This provides NO-COST food for the fish. It is an ongoing process. The farmer keeps adding fresh manure as his pigs produce it.

C
Do you ever have trouble with snakes in your fish pond? In Thailand snakes often get into the ponds and eat the fish. Here are two ways that Thai farmers deal with the problem.

First, while it is good to have grass growing on the banks or dykes around the pond to stop soil from washing into the pond, the farmers keep this grass cut short and this reduces the number of snakes coming into the pond. Some snakes still get into the water. The farmers have a good way to trap them. They gather a bunch of thorny or spiny woody branches in the bush. They tie these together in a bundle half a metre (1 1/2 feet) thick. They also tie a stone inside the bundle. Then they tie one end of a rope to it, and tie the other end of the rope to a stake on the bank of the pond. They then throw the bundle into the water and it sinks to the bottom because of the stone.

Snakes that are in the water like to crawl in and entwine themselves in the bundle. Every day or two, the farmers go to the stake beside the pond and quickly pull the bundle out of the water. They can then deal with the snakes out on the bank of the pond.