Bidding The Ladies Good-by

Everyone who knows me is aware that I do not enjoy change.  It is a fact that I will go out of my way to avoid changes.  I suppose this change takes place at a good time because I will leave for Arizona to visit my twin brother in Phoenix and my parents who are wintering in Yuma.  You may recall my post titled "Unwelcome Visitor" posted January 17, 2012 which dealt with an invasion of large rats causing havoc at the Manor.  It started out as one rat tunneling into the orchid house and making a mess everywhere.  From the greenhouse to the chicken house then we started noticing the pathways sinking from the tunnels that they dug underneath.  By the start of winter I had trapped and dispatched 37 rats and one of the staff from the nursery behind Menagerie Manor has been doing the same.  The problem has gotten out of hand to the point that I no longer trap them but set out bait stations with poison bait secured inside, out of reach of other animals.  Things seemed to have calmed with winters approach as the bait went uneaten.  Last week the Crazy Cat Lady's hissing voice sounded into our phone asking that I please come over and check out an odor in her kitchen.  Standing next to her stove I could get a whiff of something dead, she claimed it was coming from below but I told her I thought it was coming from the vent above her stove.  CCL didn't like my version as the vent would be a major job to remove.  So I asked what she thought......."rats".  The next day she had an exterminator out who quoted an outlandish fix, and the nightmare continued.  It wasn't long before CCL was blaming us for her problems on the fact that we raise chickens.  I tried to tell her that although the Ladies could be part of the problem we are diligent about cleanliness, never leave open feed containers and the ladies are only given what they can eat before roosting.  The fact is that we live in an old part of the city with old sewer lines and we have a large nursery behind us with many out buildings that they store fertilizers and other food sources.  I could see that she was about to start hissing again so thought better of reminding her that she keeps cat food in a bowl on her back porch.
So after 30+ years of raising chickens, MeMa's Ladies will be leaving Menagerie Manor for good, off to a friend's property out in the countryside where their closest neighbor is acres away.  They built a very large chicken house and run, in anticipation of our ladies arrival this coming weekend.

No more fresh eggs, no gentle clucking as they supervise my work in the vegetable garden.  On my return from Arizona I will clean out the building and move all my garden tools and machinery into it. The wire run in the above photo will become a shade house for hardening off trays of seedlings from the greenhouse.
I doubt the removal of MeMas ladies will get rid of the rats as the facts remain, old neighborhood, old pipes and large nursery.  I still stand firm in my belief that CCL's odor problem was coming from the vent above her stove, the vent is attached to an old chimney that has an open top on her roof..... and what do you suppose would be the obvious creature that may have possibly fallen down her chimney?????  Can you say tweet?