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comanche

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Everything posted by comanche

  1. comanche
    Mate they are rabbit fleas . They can't live on ferrets ..or people . Might crawl about a bit or get caught in your jumper but they can't survive without a bunny to feed on. They are going to be very active at this time of year because female rabbit fleas can only breed after latching onto a pregnant rabbit & the bunnies are in Spring breeding condition . As everyone has been saying ,hang the bunnies you've caught up and s they cool the fleas will drop off anyway. Incidentally the fleas you do find on ferrets are usually cat or dog fleas that have come-in with hay or other bed
  2. comanche
    When I started out as an impoverished and naive schoolboy I used some very cheap and nasty nets . Some were only 2 feet long but at least as I built up my stock I could actually put something-anything-over the holes rather than see rabbits skip away laughing. Later I went through a phase of making nets that tapered outwards toward the middle and then narrowed back to the bottom ring. Maybe it was because here in Sussex there are a lot of ancient buries on clay and chalk that have gaping mouths I was not as satisfied with them as with full meshed nets . (Blame the tools n all that
  3. comanche
    Quite right . Had the boy been with us from the start we would have been both obliged by tradition and within our rights to have given him a good flogging before sending him into the hedge to set all the nets whilst his father and I sat back admiring the countryside and engaging attractive lady horse-riders in conversation.
  4. comanche
    "That bit by the road junction that that no one wants to do ." Young James -my mates lad -gave us our orders before b*ggering -off to play a game of indoor bleedin cricket . Indoor cricket on a Sunday morning when he should have been ripping himself to shreds on blackthorn not mincing about in a village hall dressed like something from Brideshead Revisited .. . Ponce. We told him this of course but apart from promising to come and see how were doing later it made little difference. So it was that two distinguished gentlemen found themselves scrabbling about like a couple of pe
  5. comanche
    Can't tell from the picture if you have an 8ft or 15ft collar there . If it takes two little batteries it is a 15 footer. The 8ft takes a single battery. Sometimes a gentle wipe-over of the circuit board will revive an old box that has been laid-up . Removes the verdi-gris corrosion that can build-up. The old grey box finder will detect a mark 2 or mark 3 collar up to about 10 feet,maybe a tad more with good batteries all-round . A mark2 collar will tick quite fast and thus flatten its batteries quicker than a mark3 collar which ticks at a more leisurly rate. Accuracy is pretty much the
  6. comanche
    Hello P .I've heard of someone feeding the delicate little corpses to his ferrets after he'd denuded them of their sensual, softly yielding ,velveteen coated skins . Er Badgers and owls eat em so Iguess they are not poisonous . They are just reputed to taste foul. Then again ferrets are related to badgers and seem to have survived on some pretty strange diets ranging from breadand milk to bush-meat so maybe try just the one to see what happens . All the best K
  7. comanche
    They do have a scientific name but it's long and I have the memory of a lobotomised prawn for whatever Latin I ever did know. Elf Cups it is then .
  8. comanche
    Thanks are due to john b for turning it into DVd and Moley himself for being so generous with his knowledge . I've never been shown how to trap moles and I've been happier to make my own decisions , develop my own style and make up my own mind about mole-behaviour over the last twenty or more years . I've tended to remain a bit insular but it has'nt stopped me being told been many "factoids" over the years by no doubt ernest and well-meaning folk . Sadly so few of these invaluable tips and gems of ancient rustic wisdom seemed to have relevence to my own mole-catching experiences
  9. comanche
    Seems likely that the odd bunny would have made it here with the Romans as they were a favourite dish of the rich (Caesar himself loved them apparently) but it might well have arrived in a pickled or preserved state rather than as meat on the hoof . The signs of butchery said to be apparent on the rabbit in the BBC article indicate that it is not the remains of an animal that has burrowed to the "Roman archaological level" so it could well be a genuine find ..However, considering the amount of digging done on Romano British sites one would have expected more rabbit remains to have tur
  10. comanche
    Romans certainly knew the rabbit and both types of hare . From the writings of Strabo and the like it is obvious that they kept them in domestication of some sort .Remember though these Roman aritostcratic types could afford to pen and maintain massive areas as hare and rabbit compounds. Don't think of little yards or hutches -wild hares and rabbits are quite nervous and tend to suffer stress in confinement . It would have taken some very selective breeding to create the dopey hutch rabbits we see today. To be considered Native to Britain an animal or plant must show a linage dat
  11. comanche
    none yet ive only had them about 2 weeks Don't worry .Take em back and change em for a box of BBs if you can . They're the sort of thing that were used on big game at close ranges or by check-point gaurds and such to whack into speeding cars to wreck the engine and /or the driver ! We all live and learn .That's what this sort of forum is here for .Good luck .
  12. comanche
    I never cease to be amazed by the capabilities crammed into even the most basic of digital cameras. This shot of fallow deer may not be great but the first one was taken from the van window and shows how far away the deer were (just see em on the edge of the wood ).The other shot was taken on maximum zoom ,the engine was running so everything was vibrating . I know that they are not great pictures but they do credit to a a little pocket camera . Shows that nobody should be worried about the camera they have or be embarassed by the results . Have a go!
  13. comanche
    Oh of course the divorce season finished a day early this year because of the Sunday shooting laws . That must've saved a few marriages . Seriously .Keepers' spouses are a great lot in general. Who else would put up with a succession of smelly dogs & teams of smelly people hogging the fire in a cloud of steam after a day or nightout in the rain . The muddy foot-ware ,irregular mealtimes , the obligatory kettle boiling regardless of the hour, the second-hand stress ,fur ,feathers ,blood,sweat and .......
  14. comanche
    Cool .He was rumoured to have been a bit of a "difficult character" behind the rose-tinteds of LRH but the new project sounds intriguing and well worth a look . Basically my user/nick- name is one that was given to me by various friends years ago . Loads of reasons, insatiable appetite for knowledge about other cultures .The fact that until the ravages of time started taking their toll I tended towards the Neil Young circa 1971 school of hairdressing ,I once cut a hedge a bit short but I've never taken a human scalp . Oh and I suppose the fact that I tended to live in the woods in a
  15. comanche
    Snowing quite nicely and settling . I have a rabbit fence to erect tomorrow but of course if the ground is covered it will ,as everyone knows , be impossible to do any work and I'll have to go ferreting .
  16. comanche
    BB's almost certainly the best compromise between energy and pattern . Anything bigger will be wasted Heavy loads have fewer pellets so although the pellets'll in theory kill at silly ranges the chances of the fox being totally, missed or , worse,maimed is greatly increased. If the foxes are fairly naive and 've not had their flight distances increased by long-range lampers you should be able to squeal em in to less than 40yds . Or try a hide or high seat over some bait (if its not too cold!) Sometimes it is those "out for a walk and poke about with the gun " situations that thro
  17. comanche
    The little snow -star -lovely!
  18. comanche
    Bobafet .Hi mate .I'm a miserable old git . Did'nt mean to put a downer on your fun .I wish you all the best ! And Yorksit I'm sure I have a picture of the Phantoms (pheasant /bantam crosses) but it might take a bit of finding as it was 20 years ago . Basicly they looked like long-legged speckly ,ginger things with obvious features of both parents .I doubt they would've been fertile and I don't recall any noticable sex differences. All I did was pop a couple of ginger bantams into a 10x6 breeding pen along with a cock pheasant and his pheasant wives . With Spring in the air he obvious
  19. comanche
    Here's a couple of my old Hancock bitch from 25 or so years ago . The ones today seem a bit flashier.
  20. comanche
    Chickens loose on a pheasant shoot will act like a magnet for foxes . If you must do it get some lightweight bantams (preferably mongrel ,ie cheap ones )as these will roost properly and have a better survival rate . We had a few old bantam cocks appear in a pen once -dumped by some cheeky local we suspect .A coulpe actually were shot over the guns but the others simply "went". The pheasant /bantam crosses I bred as an experiment however lasted several years and went truly wild . Beware of two issues though . It is illegal to abandon a
  21. comanche
    Can be worth hanging the maize ,nuts or seed bait in a little plasic bag just behind and above the plate if you are using a cage -trap. This tends to slow down theft by mice overnight and does'nt attract birds into the cage. A chunk of Snickers or similar rammed onto the plate edge is good. If using a Magnum tunnel impale a chunk of snickers between the trigger wires. Beware hedgehogs when using baited traps at ground level .There's nothing they won't eat . If in doubt put the traps off the ground on a pile of logs etc. Sometimes worth putting a brick or similar against the rear of a cage
  22. comanche
    Had an invite to a friend's Keepers,Beaters and friends day today. Jolly good fun had by all .Because a few of the Beaters were relatively inexperienced at standing on a peg the "no Ground Game ,not even foxes " rule was strictly enforced which saw my mate the Keeper ,several invited Keepers and a few ex-Keepers gritting their teeth when a pair of foxes ran along the front of the Gun-line ,stick two fingers up and hop a stock-fence to safety. I managed to loose nearly a box-full of Eleys finest for a cartidges to kill ratio of ,"atishoo,cough ,cough". I promised to do better on th
  23. comanche
    thanks . These two are a bit "warmer" .The Sun had started to come over the Downs by then .
  24. comanche

    black squirrels

    comanche replied to ian's topic in General Talk

    Far as I'm aware a sub-species is a branch of a species that has developed in a separate environment , under different conditions and has therefore developed very noticable adaptations in order to aid survival in those different conditions. At the same time it remains obviously of the same species as the parent species . Obvious example would be the jungle loving Bengal tiger and the bigger ,hairier Siberian tiger that has developed to survive in the snowy wastes . Other races or sub-species of smaller tigers became adapted to life on the off-shore Indian islands . The black
  25. comanche
    A couple o pics fromthe recent frosty spell. Old Norman hunting lodge & one that looks a bit weird because I'm slowly working outhow to use the "edit" bits on the computer.
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