Would This Fictional Burrowing/Pest Control Animal Be…
0 reactions
Would This Fictional Burrowing/Pest Control Animal Be Useful For a Farmer?
Hey, I'm a high school student working on a fictional domesticated farm animal for a creating writing project. Unfortunately, i don't have a whole lot of knowledge on agriculture. I wanted to get feedback from real people rather than google lol. Sorry in advance for any gaps in my knowledge.
The creature itself is a burrowing animal about the size of a fat housecat fully grown. They're insectivores, so they only eat grubs and worms they find underground. Farmers turn them loose into fields before planting or after harvesting crops to aerate the soil and clear out any insects in the dirt. To stop them from escaping, farmers dig a deep but thin trench around the field, drop a metal mesh (Similar to gopher wire) into the trench, and bury it.
When it is time to call them, farmers usually use a very loud sound (like an airhorn) so that they can hear the underground. When the animals are young, farmers usually let them dig around in a large metal encloure (maybe a metal trough) filled with dirt, and bury fully grown plants inside. When they bite or damage a root, the farmer plays an irritating noise. Since they are very sensitive to sound, this can make them avoid roots. Young animals have high neuroplasticity, so they develop permanent habits much faster than adults.
They can also be trained to dig holes for planting seeds. They have a natural instinct to dig, and humans just guide that drive to a specific spot. People just walk them on a leash and let them dig small holes before leading it to another spot.
Because they are insectivores, they can also provide pretty good manure for fertilizer, kind of like bat guano.
That's pretty much it for the animal itself. I do have a few questions though:
1. Knowing they only eat insects and work during the off-season, would the aeration, pest control, digging and fertilizer benefits outweigh the work of setting up the perimeter mesh?
2. Would a fat, cat-sized burrowing creature cause heavy soil collapse that regular tractors couldn't easily fix during standard tilling?
3. Are there any practical farming issues with this setup that I might be missing?
Thank you in advance, sorry for any formatting issues haha.
#home
source
Hey, I'm a high school student working on a fictional domesticated farm animal for a creating writing project. Unfortunately, i don't have a whole lot of knowledge on agriculture. I wanted to get feedback from real people rather than google lol. Sorry in advance for any gaps in my knowledge.
The creature itself is a burrowing animal about the size of a fat housecat fully grown. They're insectivores, so they only eat grubs and worms they find underground. Farmers turn them loose into fields before planting or after harvesting crops to aerate the soil and clear out any insects in the dirt. To stop them from escaping, farmers dig a deep but thin trench around the field, drop a metal mesh (Similar to gopher wire) into the trench, and bury it.
When it is time to call them, farmers usually use a very loud sound (like an airhorn) so that they can hear the underground. When the animals are young, farmers usually let them dig around in a large metal encloure (maybe a metal trough) filled with dirt, and bury fully grown plants inside. When they bite or damage a root, the farmer plays an irritating noise. Since they are very sensitive to sound, this can make them avoid roots. Young animals have high neuroplasticity, so they develop permanent habits much faster than adults.
They can also be trained to dig holes for planting seeds. They have a natural instinct to dig, and humans just guide that drive to a specific spot. People just walk them on a leash and let them dig small holes before leading it to another spot.
Because they are insectivores, they can also provide pretty good manure for fertilizer, kind of like bat guano.
That's pretty much it for the animal itself. I do have a few questions though:
1. Knowing they only eat insects and work during the off-season, would the aeration, pest control, digging and fertilizer benefits outweigh the work of setting up the perimeter mesh?
2. Would a fat, cat-sized burrowing creature cause heavy soil collapse that regular tractors couldn't easily fix during standard tilling?
3. Are there any practical farming issues with this setup that I might be missing?
Thank you in advance, sorry for any formatting issues haha.
#home
source
| 4,000 mlx | |
| 4 | |
| 0 |