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David K

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Everything posted by David K

  1. David K
    Sorry if I upset you Lurcher1, perhaps it's what you needed though. Copy and pasting jokes from ancient blogs or web pages is never going to further your efforts to become one of THL's stars. You need to mix it up a bit, new material preferably and try some racism, sexism or any sort of ism will work really and then you wil be quoted and talked about by the THL elite.
  2. David K
    How old is that shite? Scousers Robbin VIDEO recorders, at least update your stereotypycal, unfunny, cut and paste jokes.
  3. David K
    I would say it is Mahonia Aquifolium otherwise known as the Oregon Grape. It is edible but usually made into jam or preserves, wine can also be made but I haven't tried it myself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon-grape
  4. David K
    I wouldn't worry about the red spider mites infesting your birds as they will be the sap eating variety that are living in your fence/garage and not the blood sucking buggers that come out at night in your coop. Sounds like enough space for a few birds, they will shit everywhere and eat all your plants, so keeping them confined to certain areas to keep the peace with the wife.
  5. David K
    Took a video today of the kits, they will be eight weeks next monday and are eating raw and kibble. There are five albinos and 3 sandys, I can't say they have been bred from working stock as the already pregnant jill came with a hob I bought, she was unwanted so I gave her a home. They are healthy, active and friendly ferrets and any lads around Cork who can give any a good home is welcome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqm94h95rvg&feature=BFa&list=FLV-1iJu3_El76OgSaHR2-WQ
  6. David K
    The terrier found, started to rip open and eat three big catering packs of bacon at the back door of the meat processing factory. It was early one morning while exercising the dogs when I lived in St Helens and the factory backed onto a coal slag heap we used to run the dogs up. Obviously somebody working there had stashed them for picking up later. I am a little ashamed to say we had them away and many a bacon butty was eaten over the following weeks
  7. David K
    As the saying goes "There are old mushroomers and bold mushroomers; but there are very few old, bold mushroomers" so unless you are very sure about what you have picked don't eat it. One of the most common mix ups with edible mushrooms is the yellow stainer looks a lot like the edible horse mushroom but gives you bad guts. http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/DisplayBlock~bid~5503~gid~~source~gallerydefault.asp
  8. David K
    Still plenty of time left this year to build up a colony, if you buy in a nucleus or a get a swarm and we get enough good weather for bees to forage then you should be fine but you really need to get on with it now and get that hive ready.
  9. David K
    Please have Ryan Tubridy as well please.
  10. David K
    I always try an avoid watching these type of programmes as they just portray stereotypes for the entertainment of outsiders and the people involved seem to be too stupid to realise they are being shown as idiots. Same as any programme about hunting and field sports, they always seem to find the chinless wonder, posh idiot who says something inappropriate while on the back of his horse/Range Rover or the bloodthirsty camo clad teenager bragging about his kills. While we all know that most hunt followers and field sport enthusiasts are just ordinary people the media really wants to show the daft
  11. David K
    I attended a queen rearing course run by our local association, really interesting stuff and we managed to graft and raise over 20 queens. Everyone who participated went away with an apidea and a queen, I have put mine on a friends farm and when I checked it last week there was plenty of comb building but the queen hadn't started laying yet. When she does I will unite it with a five frame nucleus made up from my existing hives.
  12. David K
    Hi John. As you know not checking on animals of any type at least once a day is eventually going to end up with some problems. Chickens I suppose, in a totally secure pen, plenty of water/food plus back up supplies should they run out or tip them over will probably be okay. It's all the things that could go wrong that come to mind such as a sick bird, fox attack, frozen drinking water etc. The layers I have roam around freely and I get to see them many times throughout the day but we have had a couple that have got ill and went downhill and died pretty quickly. We have some broilers as well in
  13. David K
    Here's mine, 4 hobs and 4 jills, they are 5 weeks old now and just opening their eyes and taking some food.
  14. David K
    You should be able to work out when you can pick them up yourself, there is no specific time. Every jill would be different, I have found just gradually doing more with them every time you feed/check them makes the jill aware you are not a threat and so after a couple of weeks I was able to pick up kits without the jill being concerned. Nobody is going to be able to give you a specific age as there are too many other factors involved, so you will have to use your judgement on your jills temperament. You will be weaning them soon so you will have more direct contact with them and the jill will
  15. David K
    Looks like my soil John, plenty of stones but it should be good for drainage. Everything you have planted seems to have germinated so thats a good sign and I can see you have slug pellets down so they probably won't be eaten. Can't use them myself because of the chickens and dogs so have to rely on the beer traps and picking by torchlight. I would plant more of the same if you have the room as it's all about successional cropping especially with the salad crops otherwise you just end up with a glut of stuff for a week and then nothing. I plant kale as well, great stuff when small and tender in
  16. David K
    Yes John I know what you mean, someone recently was selling commercial size, secondhand frame pieces at €25 each but they would be way to big for the garden. If I ever get this one finished i'll put up some pictures.
  17. David K
    Wait another week or so until their costing him a fortune to feed and he will be giving them away.
  18. David K
    I'm having trouble finding a vet who is able to do the op as there seems to little call for it down in the South West of Ireland, I have been quoted €150 to €200 from a vet who is willing to "have a go" but freely admits he hasn't done one before so it will be all new to him. Might be worth putting the hob in my bag next time I get the ferry over to the UK as the prices there seem to be pretty reasonable and the vets more experienced.
  19. David K
    I am in the process of building one using that design and have my scaffold tubes hammered into the ground ready to fit my pipe loops but as twotwothree says that pipe is not that cheap so it will have to wait a while. Mine will eventually be about 30ft by 10ft and fitting a T piece to extend the width would work as long as you had the central supports. A 50 metre reel of suitable pipe is around the €150 mark plus about the same for the correct grade of polythene sheet. Add in a few other expenses and it should work out around €400 for a 30 x10 polytunnel, not cheap but still quite a bit less t
  20. David K
    1 1/2 pints of elderflowers, rubbed from the stalks and pressed down lightly 1 gallon water Juice of 1 lemon 2 1/2 lb of sugar 1 pound of raisins 1 cup of strong black tea All purpose wine yeast Boil the water, sugar, tea and lemon together. Pack the flowers and raisins into your nylon straining bag, put that in a sterile bucket, and pour on the boiling liquid. Cover tightly, add the activated yeast when its cool. Give it a week in this primary ferment, racking it into a demijon and ferment out as normal. This is a nice simple one from the wine articles on http://www.down
  21. David K
    I dont think it's possible to find your alcohol content at the finished stage, it's all about finding your sugar content at the start, before pitching your yeast and starting fermentation. To use the hydrometer is pretty simple, just a case of recording a number at the start and another when fermentation has finished and doing a simple calculation. Here is a caculation that I used recently when working out the percentage alcohol of a recent batch of wine; First reading done after everything was added to brew except yeast 1086 Final reading done after fermentation finished
  22. David K
    There is no quick way if you can't access the cluster. Maybe they have been there for a while and you have only just noticed them? It is a shame to destroy a colony of honey bees but if they are causing you problems and you can't get to the colony then you may have to go down that route. I have only ever captured swarms that I could physically put into a box and take away so I'm afraid I can't give you any more advice about what to do with them.
  23. David K
    Hi, it is the time of year for swarms and please don't destroy them if you can avoid it. Try looking on the Internet for your local bee keeping association, many of them have contact details for swarm collection as bee keepers love free bees so someone will come out and collect them. They will need access to the swarm cluster to remove them so if you can see where it is all the better. Swarms will move on by themselves in a day or so if they don't think the place they are in is suitable but if it's warm and dry they could be planning on staying so the sooner someone removes them the better. A
  24. David K
    Thanks Ferreter.
  25. David K
    My jill and her 9 kits are housed in a hutch on two levels, nest box, water and food at the top and an open bottom level with wood shavings for her toilet area. The kits are now 2 weeks old and starting to try and climb out of the nest box and she is dragging them back in. As they get older they will eventually escape the nest box and venture down the ramp to the bottom section of the hutch, so would it be better if they where housed on one level so she doesn't have to drag them back up? At what age would it be appropiate to move her and her offspring into the larger ferret court so they coul
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