Rat pack vs huge pig farm rats! Ratting with terriers.

A balmy day in the countryside.
We paid a visit to a regular pig farm we have been controlling with annual days out with the pack.
A mix of outdoor units in acres of fields and large barns with concrete bases with lots of pipe work underneath.
Todays meeting point was down long and muddy track into the middle of the farm. Once on the track it was all eyes on the surrounding fields and pig units, searching for the hot spots the farmer had called us in to tackle.
In previous days at this venue we have averaged about 80, so we knew we would be in for a couple for the dogs.
As soon as we let the dogs out, they said their hellos to each other and then they headed over to a soft bank that we had fully landscaped on last visit. The bank was made when a barn was built a few years ago and is soft soil that sits just above a drainage ditch and is within scuttling distance for the rats to get to the pig food. Something which might explain the well above average size for these rats with a couple of enormous ones in the mix.
The soft soil meant the dogs were bolting the rats quickly and soon the ground was alive with them running from bolt hole to bolt hole. The runs just opened up under foot as we walked over them.
An unseasonably warm November has left the nettles up and rats bolted from one thick bit of cover to the next. This allowed us to work systematically down the bank… there were so many there and so much digging we only had time to do the one part of the farm today - we will go back and work the rest of the farm soon…