PD. The ones I know as "flying rats" are those bloody Indian Mynahs (spell?)
When we lived on the central coast they were the worst enemy. Find a way to get in and we had a communal nest in the roof. Next thing the surplus lice that lived on them started dropping through the ceiling. Right over our bed! Bad memories. I caused the demise of many of those rats via a .22 air rifle.
Next on that particular list are cockroaches. They are the bloody pits. Walk across the kitchen floor in the middle of the night and "crunch crunch". No matter how we tried they are impossible to cook into a tasty meal. I found a good way to capture them was to sink an empty beer can into the back yard lawn, put about a spoonful of port into it and the next morning it would be full with a few more waiting to get in. But even with port marinade those buggers dont rate.
White cocky's, had one as a pet. Was very affectionate, talked his head off, ended eating the top off an old car battery, drank the juice and carked it. (many years ago)
But they were a bloody pest in those days too, we grew oats, days of reaper and binder. My job was to stook the sheafs then knock the cocky's off with a .22 when they settled on the stooks. A better system (as we discovered) was to boil up some sweet corn kernels, soak in strychnine then place in the lid of empty boot polish tins on the top of a few stooks. Never saw a cocky fly more than 10 feet after trying that. The other treatment was catching one and painting it black. His mates hated that, and away they would all go.  
But in todays age of political correctness I never said any of the above.  
Will stick with the old galah anytime!
cheers mikel

G'day mikel, I made myself a shanghai and use the seeds from my Cocos palms as ammunition but the cockatoos are very cunning and keep clear when I'm in the yard. I liked your story about the cockroaches but same as you find them hard to eat even when marinated in port.
Rarely see stooks or haystacks nowdays but last year in Tasmania we saw both, reckon the number of blokes who can build a decent haystack would be few and far between.
Warren, I learned never to camp in sight of the road especially in the top end as the road train drivers like nothing more than to give you a 30 second blast on their air trumpets in the middle of the night, really gets the blood racing.
pd

Cockroaches
Bloody vermin and you cant even skite about killing them but I have to say that I have never met a pissed cockroache or maybe I have but didnt realise it (does that comment smack of State of Origin) I hope not as it was not meant to "phew" pleased I cleared that up.
one of my worst memories is of a mouse plaque in the early sixties we used to go to bed at night after clearing hundreds of the stinking things from our beds and you were kicking all night to keep them away from you until you just got to tired to care and I have hated the mongrels ever since we had 44gal or 200lt drums with the top cut out with a little bread in the bottom and a stick leant against tne side from the ground up to let them climb up and we had a near full drum every morning they used to smother each other in the drum and omly the last 6 inches could get back out I wont tell you how we killed those that were still alive but they got very hot very quickly most of those who did this have passed on but they were always proud of thier catch.

Always had trouble with our flour as well thats why most of the early recipes always gave the flour in sifters not weight as you always sifted the flour to clear it of the usual residents .
Bloody hell where will this cooking galah end now we are into roaches mice etc it just goes on and on catch ya later
Cheers Furphy

Quote:


What's a shanghai?

Little_Kopit wrote on Nov 2^nd, 2006 at 9:23pm:


I think you would call it a catapult LK