Lacking diligence, it is not possible to keep chickens in the city without also having rats.

The rats here are large and brazen. They like chicken feed, perhaps more than the chickens do. They’ve dug tunnels, gnawed holes in the neighbor’s fence and the coup, and taken over the wood-pile. It’s obvious that while I’ve been gone, the chickens have been nothing but a mere invitation to chaos.

I forgot the anticipatory struggle with the staple to free the mechanism for the trap, the nerves on edge setting the damn things lest I break a finger, the shifty sneaking around the chicken coup, plotting the perfect location. I always keep awake too late listening for the whack of death sprung down on the greedy, dirty rat! Ah! Waa haa haa! I am against rats.

The Count of Success!
Sunday: Rat killed, 1 with Austrian + bucket (drowned the rat)
Monday: Rats killed, 2 with cheese in traps
Tuesday: Rats killed, 2 with peanut butter in traps