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Matt

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Everything posted by Matt

  1. Matt
    Any chance of that post in English? [bANNED TEXT] [bANNED TEXT] [bANNED TEXT] [bANNED TEXT] [bANNED TEXT] [bANNED TEXT] [bANNED TEXT] [bANNED TEXT] [bANNED TEXT] [bANNED TEXT] Hit the 'edit post' button and have another try
  2. Matt
    This only applies to SCOTLAND though doesn't it? The rest of us just need to be ready for our turn for now....................
  3. Matt
    I'm all for qualification in the pest control industry as a whole because I think that it's nearly as important as experience. My experience of the industry leads me to believe that it's only those who can't get qualified that moan about it........... BUT.............. (here it comes....) When it comes to trapping moles, does it really matter if you know what the Berkshire term for a good pelt is? Or what percentage of oxygen in the air a mole needs to survive? Does it buggery. The only advantage to gaining all this detailed knowledge about mole biology is that you can talk m
  4. Matt
    Bollocks. I get regular double catches all year round, and I check my traps the day after I've set them. In the spring the double catch rate certainly increases, but I had a double catch not two weeks ago, and that will continue through the new season (I don't usually do much to the moles in July and August).
  5. Matt
    Yep, very good advice there Those fence line runs are killers.
  6. Matt
    Yes. Moles will travel to anywhere where there is sufficient food for them. In drier weather worms go deeper and are harder to find and moles tend to migrate to hedges, scrub and woodland. Just my opinion of course, but an opinion based on over thirty years of molecatching. Interestingly I was in a part of Devon where clay soils predominate on the weekend, and the mole activity is much more noticeable than here on the Wiltshire chalk. I've got two farms booked for September in Devon and hope to clear them both in a week. The way the weather has been this year I expect we'll get
  7. Matt
    You wrote on your status: And I commented that you had asked a stupid question. If you think that is slagging you off, then you need to get a grip because you'll get much worse for much less on this site. The reason the question is stupid is because you haven't said which .22 rifle, what it is intended to be used for, or what exactly you want from it. It's like asking "automatic car? Any good?" Honestly; WTF to people expect when they post stupid questions? A pat on the back? A "good post mate" reply?
  8. Matt
    That's all well and good if you have been established for a number of years and have built up a big client list Rolfe. If, like many, you advertise for your work, the BTMR is (pound for pound) very good and cheap advertising. I wouldn't join the BTMR to be part of any 'organisation'; especially as the BTMR is a directory business not a representative organisation. There is an organisation of professional mole catchers that works away quietly in the background fighting against things like legislation to make daily (mole) trap checking a legal requirement, and testing new traps that bec
  9. Matt
    People often confuse the one week intensive course held at Warwick with the RSPH qualification, which is an entry level qualification. It narks me to see people with this basic certificate claim to be 'fully qualified'. Most national companies will train their technicians themselves to sit the exam; some are even registered exam centres. Once a technician gets to a sensible level of knowledge they will sit the exam. The exam fee is around £150, not the £1000 that the one week intensive course costs. Most technicians start off on a basic wage of 14-16k, with overtime, bonus and co
  10. Matt
    We do not have a conservative government. With a decent working majority, I think DC would have done it; as things are at the moment, I think they have more important things to worry about.
  11. Matt
    I'm going to surprise some folks by saying this, but in my book, family comes first. Cut the guy some slack - nursing a close family member who is terminally ill is not nice. I'm sure that if he says that he's going to honour orders or repay, then that is what he will do.
  12. Matt
    Bloody good camoflauge.......... I can't even see it on the screen!
  13. Matt
    It all depends on the job. I've got a couple of large poultry units that we regularly clear at depopulation with terriers. On one job, a local 'pack' turns out; they do OK, but my two generally do the bulk of the actual killing. The others seem to make lots of noise and fuss, and kill very few. 1000+ days are not uncommon.
  14. Matt
    I don't think there are any pyrethrin based powders available anymore. Coopex used to be OK, but call backs were more common than with Ficam. The point I was making was that the advantage of using Ficam is that clients are less likely to be stung; therefore your risk assessment should show that you've minimised the hazard of stings. Using something that agitates would not do this. In other words, the hazard from stings is greater than the hazard from Bendiocarb. Using pyrethrin on bedbugs would be a really bad idea. Do you really think there is a demand for this type of service
  15. Matt
    I'm not going to speculate on what is killing the poults...... as others have already said, it could be more than one pest taking advantage of a situation. BUT.............. I do know for a fact, that rats can and do take full grown hens. I've had several jobs in my professional lifetime where I've actually seen rats kill full grown hens in big laying units. I've also seen them dragging birds out of battery cages. I have never, however, seen rats take pheasant poults. I suppose it depends on the situation. Pandas, on the other hand, are a whole different proposition...
  16. Matt
    Safe? Possibly safer. It all depends on how you define the hazard. Is the risk of a sting, or a reaction from a sting more or less than the risk of an application of something that kills them quickly without agitating them? As for bedbugs, don't forget that they are becoming increasingly tolerant to insecticides. Treating with something that agitates them (like a flushing agent) would potentially make an infestation much worse. How do you define 'green' ?
  17. Matt
    Forget the forum, it's worth the fee for the work that comes in.
  18. Matt
    Without getting into molecatching politics (!), the BTMR is actually good value for money. After being sceptical about it for years, I joined last september. Within days, I had two domestic jobs directly from it, and so had more than covered the membership fee. The other organisation is the one that offers the 'master molecatcher' certificate. They started with one exam, and now there are three. They have also been campaigning to have a change in the law to make daily trap checking mandatory. I also heard (or read, I can't remember which) that they want to see the trapline trap out
  19. Matt
    The BTMR collect monthly numbers from members. I've never bothered, because like most have already said, numbers mean nothing to me. Customer service, effficency and humane trapping are far more important in my opinion.
  20. Matt
    OK, first things first. You should know that releasing a trapped rat for a dog to kill is illegal, and has been since 1911. Posting that you have on an internet forum that is regularly watched by the police and other authorities is a bit stupid. Right, that's got that out of the way. Next question has got to be why have you got rats? What is attracting them, and where are they living. It's all very well putting a few cage traps down (please don't call them 'humane'), but all that you will do is catch a few. You will never solve a rat problem by cage trapping alone. There was
  21. Matt
    The BTMR 'Molecatcher of the Year' caught 8,453 in 2011. That's a seriously large number of moles. I do a good few, but not that many.
  22. Matt
    They are refunding all tickets and traders fees. A sad day when the worlds premier game fair has to be cancelled. And to whoever suggested that the gamefair was started off by a 'couple of lads who were bored in the summer' I suggest you look a but further into the history..... Clue is in the name CLA (Country Landowners Association). It isn't cheap to get in, but no-one is forced to go Add the CLA to the growing list of shows that have been cancelled this year. I wouldn't want to be a wellie salesman at the moment
  23. Matt
    Uh, really?? I think someone is getting confused here.... Bedbugs come out of their harbourages at night and feed on the exposed parts of the human body - usually the head and neck. Fleas usually jump from floor areas onto the ankles and lower legs which is where they tend to bite. Has anyone noticed the location of the OP? USA if I'm not much mistaken. To the OP, you need to get a good pest controller (exterminator) in who can carry out a proper site survey and establish the extent of your bedbug problem. You then need to let them carry out a proper treatment. DO NOT
  24. Matt
    Take a look at the picture here Tomo: http://www.cla.org.uk/ It takes weeks to set these big events up, and I think they decided that the ground just wasn't going to recover in time for the show.
  25. Matt
    I would have thought that given the amount of rain that we've had here, and the fact that Shepton was flooded yesterday, it must be at risk of cancellation. The sun shone here for about an hour this morning, and I reckon we've had an inch of rain in the last two hours. It's going to be no fun for anyone if it stays like this.
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