Matt
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Everything posted by Matt
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Good luck with that Dido. Only the other day I had someone phone me out of the blue to ask if I was selling (I don't know who it was before anyone asks). If only they'd called me 18 months ago.... I remember when the regs first came in. At that time I was a big user of Strychnine. I used to use a motorbike to go and pick it up at the Boots chemist on the high street to avoid the traffic and load all the bottles into my coat pockets before heading home to put it away in the cabinet. When the new regs came in which prevented the burial of the empty bottles on site I had to
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Anyone heard the latest rubbish from the EA and the HSE regarding pest control waste? You can read more about it HERE (link). From what I can gather at a glance, 'spent' bait will no longer be classified as 'controlled' and will now be classified as 'hazardous', and as such, will need a consignment note when you remove it from a clients premises. There is a partial victory in all of this in that the BPCA have managed to get an exemption from the standard fee of £5 for every consignment note. It also seems that any vehicle used to transport pest control waste will now have to be r
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You will catch nothing in a monarch if there is an alternative food source nearby. Get yourself some breakbacks and educate the chicken keeper. One thing to note is that rats drink 60ml of water each day. Often water is as much of a draw as food I always used to tell customers to turn the drinkers upside down at night to stop rats using them (a side benefit is that it also ensures the chickens get clean water every morning) and if there is any trace of food left on the ground they are overfeeding. If it's a serious problem it may be worth moving the housing in the presence of a c
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My record was 16 in one catch. Not something I'd recommend; they were in a terrible state I've used them very successfully in depopulated commercial poultry sheds. As something to pick up the odd passing rat it would be my last choice, as would most cage traps. When I was catching rats for research I ran 100 single catch cages on a regular basis. The key to success was to eliminate all the alternative food sources and pre-bait them. With the monarch, I always piled the food onto the door thereby making the door stay open until the first few were safely in. Once you've got one or
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The Kness Snap-E traps are very durable and last for years. Another point to consider is that there is NO legal requirement to check kill traps that have been set for rats on a daily basis, whereas causing (what a magistrate considers to be) unnecessary suffering to a rat caught in a cage trap could be complicated. A break back set in a plastic bait box or other tunnel is no slower to check than a properly camouflaged cage trap that needs to provide shelter from the weather for any captives and two legged thieves. A plastic, or even wooden break back trap costs a fraction of a mona
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There's nothing wrong with a monarch in the right circumstances BUT... I'd suggest it's not the ideal trap for the circumstances you describe. A few break back traps set in tunnels or even bait boxes are simple and easy to set and check: No need to bait; with boxes like the AF and similar available from SX and all the usual suppliers you can set the Kness Snap-E as a simple run through. Of course, the other issue with using the monarch, or any cage trap for that matter is that if successful, you have the dispatch problem which I'd suggest for someone who is not eve
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Giraffe flavour Only available in Copenhagen
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Don't tell the wife, but I think I've got a bit of a stiffie....
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Two weeks ago I was trapping on Exmoor. Many of the runs I opened up were full of running water. I started off the week trying to find dry runs, but by the end of the week I just set in the running water. Catch rates were normal, although the moles were all soaked when I took them out. Back out in a couple of days for another 21 day Exmoor marathon. I suspect there will be even more waterlogged runs by now.
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There could well be badger-esque civil walls on the Mendips and Quantox as we speak.... only time will tell.
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C'mon Pete, you can't go dangling carrots like that We need some trap porn pictures!!
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The last time we had a winter this wet I had a record year on the moles. The work carried on right through the summer. Any badgers on the Somerset Levels (it's not a densely populated area anyway)will have moved onto higher and drier ground some time ago. The potential spread of TB from this migration doesn't bear thinking about. It will take 6-12 months for any spike in breakdowns to become apparent because of the testing regime.
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Of course, the best tunnels are those made from natural materials found in the locality:
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No there isn't. If there was, I'm sure you'd be able to provide actual evidence of it. I think that what you may be referring to are 'guidelines' which are NOT law. I worked out how long the job was going to take and priced accordingly. Back then, (20 odd years ago) I worked on the basis of charging £100 per day. I did a 3 week trapping programme, allowed for spending half of every day doing it and charged it at around the £1000 mark. In addition, I did a lot of warfarin poisoning on that job, which was a day every two weeks using their own poison hoppers. I did a bit
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It's horses for courses the way I see it. Depending on where and how you are trapping you should choose the most appropriate trap. Fenns kill humanely providing they are in tunnels that are fit for purpose. The action of a Fenn throws its victim upwards and if there is too much clearance above the trap it will foul catch. Years ago I can remember having a chat with Mr Fenn himself on this subject and his opinion was that people didn't understand how important a low roof to any tunnel was. I think he was right and that the majority of problems with foul catches are because people make
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No, it's not the law. The law states that you have to take 'reasonable measures' to ensure non-target species are not at risk. What constitutes 'reasonable'? Only a magistrate or judge can decide that. The best tunnels are the simplest ones. A simple three sided wooden tunnel, just big enough to contain the trap, is ideal. Use some hazel sticks, or high tensile wire to restrict the entrance to stop inquisitive noses of dogs etc, and it'll be fine. I used to have about a hundred wooden tunnels knocking around the place. I'd place them all out and then clip the traps onto a st
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hows it hypocritical? the giraffe was fed some bread like it was everyday and then blasted in the head with a bolt gun while it was eating it.....id hardly call that hunting.... How? Give your head a shake mate We kill game to eat, we kill pests to prevent them harming us, we kill livestock to eat, we kill companion animals because we don't want or need them any more.... the difference? None from what I can see. Thousands of horses are put down and fed to hounds and zoo animals every year, right here, at home. Do people care? No. This Giraffe was killed humanely
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Bloody hell, there are some hypocritical posts in this thread. This is a hunting forum, whose membership consists (in the main) of people who kill animals for food, and dare I say it, sport.... Who are we to judge the actions of this establishment? On what facts are we basing this judgement? Those printed in the press? The next time the papers run a story about cruel hunters, just cast your mind back to this thread and the way in which we've all judged the zoo, rightly or wrongly. The only important facts in this story are that it was killed humanely, and it's body was not wa
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In the race for the most controversy between Longleat and Copenhagen Zoo, Copenhagen have won it by a neck...
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With a bit of help:
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I cured the neophobia in these in one afternoon:
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That is one pretty terrier, and a credit to you
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Hmmm, morse code?
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Why couldn't it be castrated? I'm guessing that the other males would've kicked the crap out of it. Animals are like that The 'gene pool' for Giraffes in Europe isn't very big because there aren't many of them. There are casualties in any breeding programme, the smaller the gene pool, the more likely the requirement to cull will happen. Look on the bright side... a load of kids got to see a Giraffe dissected, and some lions got a good feed of fresh meat.
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Not quite that simple though is it? You can't just tell it not to breed... They live in social groups. Castration was not an option, nor was keeping it on its lonesome...