comanche
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Everything posted by comanche
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Oh it's in the papers ..must be true! Just black Eastern Grey squirrels ,not possessed by demons or another alien super -species. Not a sub-species just a colour variation that makes it stand out and in it's natural habitat would mean the kiss of death from alert predators.In cities ,in this country with no enemies like hawks and martens to pick it off it survives to pass its genes on . Despite what it may say in The Sun you don't need to get your tin of Ely Wasps blessed with holy-water or specially cast in silver .
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They are just melanistic Grey squirrels so tis fine to shoot em. People seem to think they may be a bit more dominent and aggressive than normal coloured greys but this is probably because being a different colour they tend to stand out more or it could be that only the toughest survive because the colour makes em more noticable to predators . Some Us and Canadian cities have had black squill populations for years
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The old tail off and release scam .That might explain why they had to offer a bonus to get the job done properly . Mate ,you've made my day! That little grey van(Escort ,Marina,Ital?) is something that has stuck in my head for near 30 years . Cute.... Yes .They had a stuffed one in Bramber museum but it had been made to look like a ravening monster with bared ,snarling ,yellow teeth.Did'nt ring true at all. After-all they are really just big aquatic guinea-pigs.
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No prob getting poultry in Sussex . Back-yarders & proffessional breeders aplenty and small-holders shows are held several times a year which have sales of surplus stock . The free advert papers usually have a poultry section and a few times a year end of first lay birds can be saved from the pie factory for as little as 50p or a £1. Uz Zuzzex Folk's generally friendly types but sadly our foxes can be buggerz!
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No expert but ,maybe some sort of Booby ?
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There were a few killed in Sussex many yeaers ago but the hold- out area was East Anglia .Basicly they were introduced to fur farms (Nutria is the commercial name of the fur) ,I think about the late 1920's. Some escaped but others were simply let loose when the farms failed to make the expected profits if the stories are true. They undermined banks and destroyed the natural vegetation of the fens as well as damaging acres of root crops . As far as i remember there was a massive campaign in the 70's into the early 's to not just control them but to totaly exterminate them in this cou
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Bloomin Ell twas only 2 minutes ago I sent him an E mail and his name comes up on THL !!! Using the remote powers of the interweb and with the intermediate help of the sales staff at Killgerm he bade me deliver a trap and instruct the new owner on the safe use of it against the hordes of squills threatening to over-run her tiny cottage & devour her as she slept . This guy is a gent . I did'nt require or expect any sort of enumeration but the brand new Kania 2000 that arrived with my name on it was gratefully and graciously accepted !
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Ah Moley . You might 've shed some light . Suppose Badgers and ferrets being related might explain a similar taste for moles . Just an idea Long unaccounted -for Roman coins popping out of the ground ! The police have been trying for years to put a team of moles into the underground money laundering trade
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Cats and foxes catch them and play with them without eating them sometimes - same goes for shrews. They must taste funny or something? OTC apparently they taste bitter so foxes etc dont eat them, i know my cat never did WELL LADS , I DONT KNOW ABOUT THE TASTE THEORY .................... AS I OFTEN FED MY FERRETS ON MOLES AND THEY READILY EAT THEM ALL THE BEST DUCKWING Yep .A friend feeds his freds skinned moles . Tis true though that water shrews have a toxic saliva and maybe other shrews give something nasty off if they have been grooming them
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Anything you try yourself has to obviously be safe (Don't mean to insult you by saying that .I've welded a few springs and made the missing bits for my old 410's folding mechanism so I know the temptations. ) . My first stop would actually be a gunshop ,especially one that takes repairs . They may well tell you that itwould be too costly to fabricate a new part but many gunshops have stocks of old or broken guns they keep for spares and may even be able to track a part for you via their contacts . Good luck
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Cats and foxes catch them and play with them without eating them sometimes - same goes for shrews. They must taste funny or something? OTC S'posed to be one of the foulest tasting animals going according to Victorian biologist /gourmets Francis Buckland and his dad . Owls eat em with relish though . Er when I say "with relish" I don't mean things like horseradish sauce.
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I was given one of these catch-alive tube traps by a customer who addmited that he'd forgotten about it and only found it by accident when he hit it with a fork . luckily it had'nt caught a mole . I sometimes show it to customers who have heard of such things and like the idea of a so called "humane " method of trapping. A few words about the starvation ,dehydration and stress caused to a highly- strung animals' nervous system are usually enough to put the customer off the idea . Add to this that unless these traps are set in really shallow runs they cannot be checked easily without being ex
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My old headkeeper used to say that if you found a dead mole on a footpath or woodland track it meant that a fox was about. Don't know if this was just to encourage us to spend more time on vermin control or if it has any biological truth.
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Sorry for delay Stig n Doddsey. No I did'nt go to Durrington High .Forest Boy's school,Horsham. Ha n' Stig , I've heard that its not advisable to ferret the "dips" on the ring as they are actually the entrances to 30 foot flint mines ! Is this true ? Was ferreting a bit further south today .What with all the frost twas a bit like killing rabbits in Narnia !
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The BBC wildlife on one team found that out when filming the programme on moles, dont know if you lot have seen it, but theres lots of footage of the moles travelling through their tunnels, they were all filmed in a large tank. They found out a few things when doing this filming apparently............. I read something from an old bit of mole research .Apparently the 4 hour shift pattern is pretty true but if a mole is prevented from finding enough food because of a shortage or some sort of disturbance it will go back to cover for a bit more sleep rather than waste energy or suffer s
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The Law on bodygrip placement
comanche replied to ianrob's topic in Snaring, Trapping & Pest Control
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we had 76 on saturday and i had 34 today of the fell edge, nothing showing any signs of being in young , theres fleck around the sets tho , so it won,t be long 45 years ago we used to ferret right through till April, we only stopped when we bolted young,back then rabbits were few and far between 4 was a good bag 8 was a red letter day, about 30 years ago we finished in March,back then bags of 50-100 were fairly common,[though the locater helped]nowdays it looks like ending in Febuary, but again the numbers of rabbits are up ,i see rabbits in fields where there were none when i was a kid.Wha
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Did a gentleman by the name of Hanibal Lecter happen past ?
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The youngens getting caught now are from late litters(mated in October ,kindled November ,weaned December) not early ones .It's quite normal .Rabbit tend to come into breeding condition after the shortest day (Dec21/22) as the light levels rise ,go out of condition during the long days and the heat of summer and then have a brief flurry of mating activity in the late summer early autumn. While rabbits will mate at this time of year many litters will not go full term and may be reabsorbed back into the mother if there are bad weather conditions ,lack of food or stress of any sort. Some of
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The Law on bodygrip placement
comanche replied to ianrob's topic in Snaring, Trapping & Pest Control
is it deep enuff? The law specifies a "tunnel" ,something that any reasonable person will recognize as having a far more substantial overhang than some of the pathetic little "archways " that some folk claim satisfies the criteria. As Matt the Rat ,Rolfe and others have mentioned the tunnels aid the proper functioning of the traps as well as acting as an attractant for target species by their very design . Part of trapping is about setting traps in a way that non-target catches are minimalized as far as possible. The Law does recognise this need and any trapper who does'nt -
Had stroll between Chanctonbury and Cissbury Rings this afternoon. Both ancient earthworks on the South Downs that i last visited on a school trip 35or 36 years ago. Had'nt changed much . Got me wondering about the whereabouts of the delectable Miss Paisley the geology teacher who bravely herded us uncouth ,hormonal teenagers up the slopes, across the embankments and back to the mini-bus without a single loss and even succeded in goading us into doing a few field scketches. If I remember the scetch that Johhney Wolfe drew had little to do with Neolithic hill forts and flint mines but a l
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The Law on bodygrip placement
comanche replied to ianrob's topic in Snaring, Trapping & Pest Control
is it deep enuff? The law specifies a "tunnel" ,something that any reasonable person will recognize as having a far more substantial overhang than some of the pathetic little "archways " that some folk claim satisfies the criteria. As Matt the Rat ,Rolfe and others have mentioned the tunnels aid the proper functioning of the traps as well as acting as an attractant for target species by their very design . Part of trapping is about setting traps in a way that non-target catches are minimalized as far as possible. The Law does recognise this need and any trapper who does'nt -
Lot of people spouting a lot of bollocks about a third hand story they know f*ck all about. Bearing in mind that a farmer can shoot dogs under certain circumstances ,that it is illegal to have a dog loose in a field of sheep without permission anyway and that if the owner really cared for his dogs he would not have let em keep straying onto someone else's land over a period of hours let alone chase stock it seems the dog-owner had no respect for the land ,livestock or even his own dogs . Sadly the dogs not the owner ,paid the price. If you go into the countryside you should know n
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Respect the fact that you don't like the idea of eating dogs or horses but the truth is that most evidence indicates that both horses and dogs were at first hunted for food and even when domesticated were regarded as meat on the hoof as well as for their ability to drag or carry loads . It is only our very strange bi-polar British sensitivities that reject the killing of certain animals for food yet has seen horses slaughtered en mass in the name of warfare as something quite glorious.
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I have eaten fox.Casseroled was ok , cut small and fried was actually much better. It sounds pretty similar to the above. Sort of strong liver/pigeon/hare sort of taste. I only did it because I'd read that fox remains along with those of red deer appeared in large numbers in the middens of our ancestors and were ,from the evidence ,very important parts of their diet. Seems dog was a very special dish to the American tribes.Read about the custom of some tribes of killing and serving-up their very best dogs to honour a special guest and then crying and lamenting the loss of the f