Racumin Foam

[Matt 160]

There really are some proper twats on here, I've never poisoned a mole in my life and never will, as Matt says I only trap them and have done for a living the last sixteen years.

That's what I thought.

 

Anyway, what is a 'traditional' mole catcher? Someone like Arthur Randal? He often used strychnine when the skins weren't worth selling.....

 

This attitude of looking down on anyone who uses poisons of any sort is silly IMO. There's a place for the toxic option and it often requires far more skill than some folks give credit for.

 

Anyway, back to the topic in hand.... personally I don't think that modern products are any more dangerous than the people applying them.

[DIDO.1 22,855]

Arthur Randall? is he the one who carried a moles foot to ward off arthritis?

 

My father used to have a small pump device, you filled a small box with dust and turned the handle on the side which then blew dust out of a pipe....unfortunately it was left in the garden shed and thrown out by my mother during one of her spring cleans....

 

Does anyone still have one or know where one could be sourced...if it distributes dust as evenly as my memory thinks it did then I could think of a few uses for it

[nod 285]

I catch moles now on some of the land that he use to do and some that others did that was in his book

[Matt 160]

I catch moles now on some of the land that he use to do and some that others did that was in his book

Love that Nod

 

Do you ever find yourself looking at willow trees and wondering?

[nod 285]

I find myself looking at the bare fields in front of me and cold hands thinking wtf am I doing,

Between Arthur Randall and Pop Bowels I bet they had some stories to tell,

The owner of a nice country house said to me that he said to Pop "you will never catch all the moles on this land" and pop replied " I know and I never will"

Good job he didn't or I wouldn't be on there

[Matt 160]

LOL @ Nod...

 

Funnily enough, while I'm tramping around Exmoor in the winter I rarely stop to look at the view and often find myself wondering what the hell I'm doing scratching around for a few moles...

 

Then the spring comes, the doubles increase, and on those lovely spring mornings I get to look right across the land I love and it suddenly feels right

 

Those old boys certainly earned their coin.... Randal riding his bike 14 or 15 miles to put down traps and then going home to skin the catch... Yep, they earned their living alright

[dogs-n-natives 1,182]

There really are some proper twats on here, I've never poisoned a mole in my life and never will, as Matt says I only trap them and have done for a living the last sixteen years.

My bad mole trapper, sorry... thought you were saying that you often used it just read it wrong... I hate poisons lol and yes Matt I would prefer to litter the place with very well-set traps, and do what I could with their 'home base', Ive had big rat jobs and eventually you little them away, by a range of methods, but I didn't charge the earth for my time as I often found it was also my main hobby. Too much time on my hands perhaps.

Sorry for the ill-thought out post earlier, I just hate to see traditional methods loosing out to poisons and gas etc pet hate thats all.

 

Good trapping

 

DnN

[Matt 160]

D&N, to a degree, I agree with you

My favoured method with big jobs was to dive in with the dogs first, kill what I could, and then mop up with bait. I'd then use traps to monitor and pick up the passing rats before they had chance to get established.

BUT... toxic products (OK, 'poison' if you insist) has it's place, and is only really effective when it's properly applied.

It always makes me laugh when you hear of 'traditional' mole catchers that only use traps. The old boys (as mentioned above) loved to trap, but the economics and practicalities of the job often meant that it was easier to reach for the Strychnine bottle... in fact, for more than 150 years it was the first choice product for those chaps, who only really bothered with traps when the skin price was good

And then there are the 'traditional' rat catchers, who had no qualms at all about using Squill, and lot's of other really dangerous products....

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that you rarely found people who specialised in any one particular method; the most successful vermin killers used various methods, and usually added a huge amount of skill and sense into the mix... it's only in the last 50 or 60 years that 'specialists' have appeared on the scene and insisted that theirs is the only way..

 

[Matt 160]

Whilst I only trap these days, there was a time when I both trapped and used Strychnine:

[dogs-n-natives 1,182]

I also got my strychnine ticket in 1998 , I only did 2 farms with it and just kept hearing of too many 'incidents' regarding the stuff. It just didn't seem right to me, bit like cheating I suppose? I also work on mainly unimproved grasslands, in sensitive areas and keepered estates and in my opinion trapping is best for these areas. I am not saying chemicals don't work, I know they do, all too well, but as I get older, I find it important to stick to traditional methods.
I should lighten up a bit maybe, as I have turned really anti-chemicals/poisons, I just don't like the way the world is heading. I mean, theres a chap local, he will turn up at the farm, ask where the rats are, chuck a heap of bait down, invoice, then leave. In my opinion this is veering away from what pest control is all about. As a profession, there seems to be no youngsters coming through with any real skill in setting good traps, knowing their quarry, how to catch them, its all about 'time efficiency', cost effective', quick results' = poisons.

[Matt 160]

I also got my strychnine ticket in 1998 , I only did 2 farms with it and just kept hearing of too many 'incidents' regarding the stuff. It just didn't seem right to me, bit like cheating I suppose? I also work on mainly unimproved grasslands, in sensitive areas and keepered estates and in my opinion trapping is best for these areas. I am not saying chemicals don't work, I know they do, all too well, but as I get older, I find it important to stick to traditional methods.

 

That was a picture of my last ticket.

 

I started doing pest control in 89, and for the first two years I did nothing but trapping and a bit of rat baiting. I was very lucky, and landed a big estate job where I got to do rabbits, squirrels and rats.....

 

As time went on, I needed to do more work, and make more money, so I started doing insects (first job was a wasp nest with Cymag, lol). Whilst I was quite happy to trap moles (no mole no fee) on garden jobs, the only way in to the farm side was to go down the strychnine route.

 

For two years, I was the biggest user of Strychnine in the Southwest.

 

I hated the damn stuff. Couldn't sleep the night before a big job, and got quite paranoid about it. When I married in 96 my Mrs put her foot down and stopped me using it. That last permit was for one biggish job I did in 97 and was the last permit I had in my own right.

 

When I moved up country in 2004 I used it one last time at Stonehenge. I managed to convince the powers that be that a more non-toxic approach would be safer and more effective, and proved my point. As far as I'm aware, nothing toxic has been used on that site since.

 

I should lighten up a bit maybe, as I have turned really anti-chemicals/poisons, I just don't like the way the world is heading. I mean, theres a chap local, he will turn up at the farm, ask where the rats are, chuck a heap of bait down, invoice, then leave. In my opinion this is veering away from what pest control is all about. As a profession, there seems to be no youngsters coming through with any real skill in setting good traps, knowing their quarry, how to catch them, its all about 'time efficiency', cost effective', quick results' = poisons.

 

Like you, I get very frustrated by the lack of respect for fieldcraft, and the over reliance on chemical intervention.

 

As anyone that worked for me at one time will tell you, I always believed that pest control was pest control, and I've never agreed with labelling some methods as 'specialist'.

 

What do I mean?

 

Well, when I first joined a national company it was as a Senior Technician, working on nothing but 'Wildlife'. The chap running the branch wanted to 'cream off' what he considered to be 'wildlife work'.... I did it for a bit, but to be honest, it was all a bit mad, with me racing all over the country to look at rabbit jobs and trap the odd mole.

 

As I scrambled up the greasy pole, I managed to convince people that pests were just pests, and most of the lads who were employed to kick bait boxes were perfectly capable of trapping the odd mole, and working a few drop boxes.

 

As time went on, I found myself being the one to employ new technicians, and I always favoured the countryside type lads, who had a bit of background in fieldsports (as Deker and a couple of other lads on here can confirm).

 

You see, the same fieldcraft that tells you where to put that trap also tells you where to place that bait point

 

Actually, looking back, I think there is less reliance on toxic methods now than there ever has been.

 

Anyway, it's been an interesting debate, and a nice trip down memory lane, so thanks to one and all.

[J Darcy 5,871]

Brilliant thread...thanks Matt and others for the tales....

[greenman 221]

I've just been supplied some to try. The grain store on the farm I work on was converted from a cattle shed 30 odd years ago, unfortunately doing a 'cheap' conversion back then created a rat haven, lots of 'H' irons and tin cladding over the old Yorkshire boards creating loads of inaccessible cavities. Since I started here I've got the numbers down and kept on top of them with traps and shooting. Feed baits are very difficult, take up is poor there is only a short period when the shed is empty and that's not every year. I've placed the racumin where I can access behind the irons where they are running, I'll keep you updated on the results.

I realise it's hard to comment without seeing the place, but any ideas or tips from anyone on here regarding the inaccessible last rats would be gratefully received.

[DIDO.1 22,855]

how did the foam work?

 

the killgerm rep had some in his bag the other day.....he didnt want to part with it as a free gift though!

[StephenWalsh 73]

I had a can off Killgerm. So far so good.