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Latest Farming News |
2008 Ratting Day Report and Photos from David Morley |
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All aboard for Ratting Day - Friday 6th June 2008 Friday 6th June saw this year's Ratting Day. For various reasons it has been impossible to hold it sooner, which meant that although dry and calm, the weather was a bit cooler than we would have liked. And by this time of year the rats have burrowed deeper, requiring more work to dig them out.
The gangs sent out at first light. There were 8 teams - Below The Hill, Coolers, Daily's Hill, Bill's Hill, Farm, Second Watron, Red Body Hill and Twitty Patch.
The Administrator and the MO, among others, provided transport for the families out to the Patches later during the morning and back in time for the judging at 1800. Left : Preparing the feast - A Land Rover laden with supplies arrives at The Patches to keep hungry hunters going for a day's hunting. |
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Judge Dereck Rogers was ready and waiting at his vet's surgery at 1800 sharp, with Chief Islander Conrad Glass invigilating and the Admin and the MO observing as referees. Left Dereck checking tails & David measuring. Right : Conrad scrutinising results. |
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Left : Eureka - the longest tail for 2008 at 250mm - all part of a day's work for the Tristan da Cunha Administrator! Right : More deliberations The two categories were largest number of tails, and longest tail. The first category takes into account the gang numbers, so the biggest total doesn't necessarily win the prize. Over 900 rats bit the dust on the day. |
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Results were:
Left : Jack Green receives the first prize from Dereck Rogers on behalf of the Second Watron Ratting team who win the team competition for the second year running. |
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Nelson ashore Administrator David Morley took this picture of Nelson, a pedigree Labrador pup just arrived via the Kelso from a kennel in Somerset West on 30th November. Watch this space! |
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Ratting Day - Monday 18th June 2007 The annual Ratting Day was announced by Agriculture Officer Dereck Rogers, ringing the fishing gong at 06.30hrs. It was a nice day with the wind from the NW making it calm at the Potato Patches. The police and administrator's land rovers were used to transport the ladies and pensioners from the village to the Patches.
There was rather a carnival atmosphere, as the men set out to hunt the rats. The dogs were very excited, knowing they would be hunting rats. Soon there was barking of dogs, and the shouting of 'catch him, catch him', as the nests of rats were dug out. They rush for cover with men and dogs chasing them, sometimes being hard to distinguish who was chasing who, as the rats rushed back towards the men, who got smartly out of their way, not to get a rodent shinning up a trousers leg!
About midday the gangs of men retired to the camping huts for a scrumptious lunch which the ladies had cooked. Then it was back to hunting more rats and mice. By 18.00hrs all the gangs had handed their batch of rats tails, to be counted. By cutting off the tail of the rats and mice there is a record of the amount of which each gang kills.
The name of each team is named after an area of the patches, they are:
The Farm, Red Body Hill, Old Pieces, Second Watron, Daily's Hill , Twiddy Patch, Below the Hill, The Coolest, Johnny's Patch
Dr Carel Van der Merwe, Derek Rogers, and myself counted the tails in the veterinary clinic, We also measured the longest rat tail from each team. There was a lot of banter between rival teams as the tails were counted.
There was a dance to celebrate ratting day later that evening, when the prizes were given out by myself and Dereck.
If Ratting day was held in early May I think we would have killed more mice because the weather was warmer.
Thanks to all who took part and to Dereck for organising events. |
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| Photo taken by Andries de Vries of Left - Agriculture Officer Dereck Rogers who organised Ratting Day (with his hands full of rat's tails) and Right - Chief Islander Conrad Glass who wrote this Ratting Day Report |
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The winning teams were :
Most Tails: 1st Prize Second Watron 22.6 tails per man
2nd prize Below the Hill 18.3 tails per man
3rd Prize Daily's hill 16.9 tails per man
Longest Tail:
1st Prize Twitty Patch 27.5 cm
2ns Prize Daily's hill 27.2 cm
Booby Prize Old Pieces Total number of rats killed 652. |
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Ratting Day 12th May 2006 was a lovely sunny day and saw the annual Tristan da Cunha Ratting Day. This traditional Public Holiday, held during the May, sees almost the entire community out hunting with dogs in gangs, with groups meeting in Potato Patches Camping huts for lunch and a celebratory dance in the evening. There are ambitious plans |
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Photographs show dogs sniffing out rat nests, men digging out the rodents and the dead rats awaiting tail removal ready for the all-important count and measurement. |
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The Official Count Agriculture Officer Neil Swain and Dr Joerg Jaschinski counting and measure the rat tails with Fr Don Wittich in the background acting as adjudicator. A grand total of 1165 rats & mice were caught |
Prizes for most tails went to the following traditional Ratting Gangs : 1st Prize - Twitty Patch Longest Tail Prizes : 1st 257mm - Bills Hill. |
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Ratting Day Prize Giving Left : Adrian Swain receives the coveted Ratting Trophy on behalf of the Twitty Patch Team Right : Dawn Repetto receives the 2nd prize on behalf of the Below-the-Hill. It is interesting to see women are joining gangs that were formerly a male preserve! |
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May Day Arrivals |
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Easter Chicks A Photograph from Mike Hentley showing an assorted brood of 11 Tristan chicks on 29th March 2006. Most families keep hens, to supply their own eggs and occasional meat. |
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Whose pigs are these? A March 2006 picture of a Tristan Landrace sow with ten two-week old piglets. A draw is to be held, with lucky island families whose names are drawn out of a hat can buy them, feed them and produce their own pork chops, perhaps for Christmas Barbecues in 2006. The boar is a Large White. One of the gilts in the litter is being kept for breeding as Tristan will not import from South Africa whilst there is a swine fever problem. The old sow had become infertile and is now pork chops. So the Grand Tristan Piglet Lottery (drawn on 27th March) was down to 9 lucky tickets. |
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Summer Arrival |
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| Sheep Shearing Day report from Administrator Mike Hentley - see also Sheep and Wollens Page for related information. |
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Published by the Tristan da Cunha Government and the Tristan da Cunha Association. Copyright © 2007 and all Rights Reserved. This page first published July 2005 |