Neal
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Everything posted by Neal
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No, I don't; my Mum died of cancer nearly nine years ago thanks to smoking. It's amazing how one little bundle of dried and rolled up leaves can ruin so many lives.
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I currently have a welsummer bantam. She's been the most "wild" of all my bantams, by this I don't mean unfriendly but rather that she's far more self sufficient. She hardly ever eats any layers pellets and lives almost entirely off of what she gets while free-ranging in the garden. As a result she's extremely cheap to keep. She's also been the best flyer and can manage the 6' garden fence unless clipped. The yolks of her eggs are also more orangey than the others, presumably due to the more varied diet. I'm considering getting a maran and barnevelder bantam soon but read on the internet
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Not quite the same thing, but I use three kelpies for ferreting, bushing etc. They have a fantastic nose and are very determined; the smallest bitch can get virtually anywhere. Two drawbacks are that they don't quite have the speed for daytime rabbits in the open and as a result of this will sometimes open up. The flip side of the coin is that they're much better at catching in cover, and as I live in Hampshire and do most of my ferreting in overgrown woodland this suits me just fine. I had a 3/4 collie 1/4 greyhound quite a few years ago and he was a great dog too. To use a simile, taking
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can any 1 tell me what type of bird this is ??
Neal replied to redda09's topic in Wildlife and General Photography
Definitely not song thrush as their nest is lined with mud. Out of mistle thrush and blackbird I'd go for the latter as the fledgelings don't look quite spackled enough for mistle thrush though it's difficult to tell due to their age. -
When I had my first ferrets about nine or ten years ago they were kept in a court at the bottom of the garden whereas the lurcher and kelpie were housed in a run by the back door. When I cleaned out the ferrets I used to put down their food on a drain cover about half way down the garden and then run like mad, back to their court and close the door behind me else they'd follow me back in which made the cleaning a tad more tricky; they couldn't get out of the garden as there was a brick wall all the way around it. Bear with me I'll get to the point soon...on one occasion, after cleaning out
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Apparently bantams make better broodies than large fowl. However, I've kept several bantams for the last few years and only one was consistantly broody (annoyingly so). She was a silver pencilled wyandotte.
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Just the dog; the neighbours offered to pay for the replacements.
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My kelpies are fine with my bantams but a lakeland a few doors down went through a spate of escaping from his garden and mullering them. The only one which consistantly survived was the welsummer. Incidentally, all the holes in his and my garden are now firmly blocked so I've been terrier free for over a year...but my kelpies hate him and want to kill him every time they meet the scruffy little tyke!
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Is it one of those magic eye pictures that you have to look at slightly out of focus in order to see it?...Is it a rose?
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It wasn't until reading this thread that I ever gave it any thought; but having thought about it I've realised that of the eight dogs I've bought over the last eighteen years none of them have been from close by ie the same county. I think Jigsaw probably holds the record though especially when you add in all the extra cock-ups he suffered along the way. But boy was that bitch worth the trip!
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Mars, that's a very useful looking dog and I know exactly what you mean. I don't work lurchers any more but when I did I always preferred the look of the ones which took after the base blood more than the sight-hound blood. As for the subject of traits skipping generations; I feel this is true both physically and mentally/behaviourally. Although two of my dogs are almost identical to one of each of their parents, the other looks more like her grand-dam. I also have a book about the late Les Tarrant and his Rockybar Kelpie Stud from which the latter bitch is descended; this bitch is very di
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I mean that I don't regard a dog used for ferreting as a second-rate occupation which is what I inferred from your description of it as "...just ferreting." Please avoid the offensive sarcasm as my use of a quote was certainly not intended to be offensive.
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Until recently I was using a type of straw called Medibed which is treated for lice etc. However, I found it was retaining a lot of water and encouraging damp in the kennel unless cleared out very frequently, which was costing an arm and a leg. I also found that they either kicked it all into the corner or shoved it out into the run...maybe I should've taken their hint. I now use offcuts of carpet which are far more comfy.
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"...just ferreting."
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One man's meat is another man's poison...or to put it into context: one man's litter wastage is another man's life-long ferreting/mooching partner.
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Thanks Skycat! I'm sitting here on Thursday morning reading this while waiting for the vet to open as I'm taking my bitch in to get her spayed. Now I'm having second thoughts. This is the third bitch I've had spayed. The first was many years ago and was because I was re-homing her and knew the bloke I was giving the bitch to might be tempted to breed from her but she definitely wasn't good enough to use. The second was due to medical problems during her last season and my current one is simply because I know enough people breeding the kind of dog I like to never need to breed so have no reas
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I think it's a bit of horses for courses; some people enjoy reading articles which simply tell you about a particular day's hunt whereas other people like articles with lots of facts that they already know (and no; that's not a criticism, I'm sure I'm not the only person on here with shelves full of dog books and birding books full of the same information). There's a place for both but the thing is to keep them moving and interesting. Some of us may be thinking, "oh no, not the old, 'are whippets better than whippet crosses,' 'the rise and fall of the working border,' or 'which lurcher type is
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SJM: cross referring this thread to the one about writing articles; maybe you should pen one about this. I for one find it very interesting. Also, after re-reading my previous post I thought I'd better add, as it wasn't clear, that the bitch from the German dam is very much a one man dog and quite anti-social whereas the bitch from the other dam is very friendly and outgoing.
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I'm a teacher so I've looked into this subject in a fair amount of depth with regards to humans and to a certain extent there are some similarities with dogs. I can't remember who said it but somebody once said that although a lot of people refer to their dogs as being "almost human" the opposite is more true ie a lot of human traits are "almost canine," eg pack instinct. Anyway, returning to dogs...the nature/nurture debate will always be a hot potato because although we all, to a certain extent, agree that both have a bearing on a pup's future we can't prove the percentages one way or t
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...and there's no more Bill Oddie with his annoying chants of, "stop killing all the innocent fluffy creatures!" There was a clip last night of Badger's killing and eating rabbits. They made out it was some amazing piece of new evidence about the lifestyle of brock.
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Please don't take this as serious advice as I'm a non-driver but...I was doing some internet research for my Mother-in-Law recently. She wasn't looking for an off roader, just a little run-around, but while browsing I found a great clip on youtube comparing the Panda 4X4 to a Range Rover.
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Tyla, do you know why the others were sold on?
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I always find that although you hear them a lot, you rarely get a glimpse of them. I saw one a couple of days ago but the last one I saw previously was three years before that. One other thing: if hearing a cuckoo is the first sign of Spring and seeing a swallow is the first sign of Summer, how come I always see the swallows before I hear a cuckoo!
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Spaying won't necessarily make her gain weight...it just means she'll be cheaper to feed!
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I currently have a ferret cage which I bought on ebay after reading a topic on here. Unfortunately when it was delivered there was some minor damage to the roof in the form of a small split in the wood and a gauge in the felt. Fortunately, I was sent a replacement cage a couple of days later but despite emailing them they've left me with the original damaged one too. Rather than try to sell it I was wondering if any "young hunter" who's better at DIY than I am would be interested in having it to start them off. It's roughly 5' long and 2' wide with a nest box accessed by a ladder and cost