h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the late 1970's when I was on CB radio
I had 3 friends who were nursesand they had a pet rat
"they" were into wine drinking (yuk) and would put a "cap full" of wine down for the rat
One dayI heard that the rat had died
I joked - through alcoholic poisoning ?
The nurses said! sort of it got drunk and walked off a balcony 3 floors up on a block of flats..................

Now I wonder if drunk cats would survive that.

We used to have lots of pet rats, but never gave them alcohol.
I have seen the effect of fermented fruit on chickens. They were very happy, then fell over.

As for the bottom feeding rats of these photos: They look cute, but I wouldn't pet these, they can bite really hard (even pet rats can, if you try to separate two that have an 'argument'. Hierarchy is usually defined by a sort of judo / wrestling matches, but sometimes you have a scrawny cheater that bites instead). We once had to integrate a new group of 12 rats into our existing and peaceful group of 15 (someone had a little accident by ways of mixing male and female rats. We got the female part of the result). After a few days of the normal scuffles, one of the newcomers decided she wasn't happy with the outcome and terrorised herself up to the top.

Nice photos.

Thank you

That's interesting about the wrestling for position in the hierarchy. That must have been tricky to integrate two large groups - hard enough introducing eg one new cat to a group of other cats.

Yes, I was glad the rats were not too close to me - nice to study from a distance, but they are not for petting indeed...

I once saw a program on tv (can't remember what about)
but part of it was - a farm owner saw 3 rats walking abreast across the farmyard ? and followed them in curiosity.
They went down to the stream next to the farm and entered the water ?
IT turned outThat the rats were holding a stick between them ?
the outcome was!!!! The middle rat was blind and the other 2 were taking it to bathe!!!

Intelligence is NOT just for so called humans

Oh wow - that is impressive! "Intelligence is NOT just for so called humans" - yes indeed

I once "called" the council about possible rats under the floorboards because of scurrying sounds ?

The guy that came to put poison down, said :- You'd hear running about, but you'll never hear ratsbecause they have a sort of padding on their feetand they don't leave "mess"

Mice can fly! (if they approach the mousetrap from the other side). Seen it happen.

Best way to kill all vermin OWN an Howitzer BOOM!

Cheese down the barrel and fire it at regular intervals sort of thing?

MY vermin are "human" (actually less than human)