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Rabbits with HMR


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Just a word of warning with all this modern technology you can soon shoot out your permission, I tend (unless told other wise) to look at managing numbers rather than a total wipe out to a point were

There will come a time very soon when this technology is pennies and everyone with an FAC has all of their rifles equiped with it. The difference with this is that the animal doesn't even know it's be

I've seen it happen. These are great bits of kit and make life very easy but I do fear too many sport hunters are/will use these simply to get more. Then they need more permission and do the same agai

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31 minutes ago, foxtrotoscar said:

Well if this isn't "mixy" I must be full of crap!:cray: 

mixy.jpg

Yeah I see what you mean or what you are getting at now. You might be right?

Ot could also have been that the rabbit had been near the bottom of the pile for a few hours until the gutting had been done and it ended up nearer the top when piled up again? Might have just been in a squashed position which closed the eye or similar?

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5 minutes ago, Premier Pistol said:

Yeah I see what you mean or what you are getting at now. You might be right?

Ot could also have been that the rabbit had been near the bottom of the pile for a few hours until the gutting had been done and it ended up nearer the top when piled up again? Might have just been in a squashed position which closed the eye or similar?

 

No mate, this is a healthy dead rabbit..LOL!   

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Edited by foxtrotoscar
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10 hours ago, foxtrotoscar said:

from the limited number of rabbit heads on show in the photo, it's clear (to me at least) that mixy is present there.  The rabbit shown at the bottom of the photo is clearly suffering mixy and the others that I can see show the tell tell signs I expect from that disease.  As I said I'm not being critical, as they need dispatching even more so.  I find on my permissions that they hang around when in the open to the crack of the HMR, as they are confused and blind and slow to run.

Hmmmm..from the limited number of rabbit heads on show??? Eh???? Have you ever piled a load of dead rabbits in the back a landrover and emptied them end of the night there squashed, contorted, full of snot and blood, eyes closed eyes open, full of piss.. I didn’t notice any mixy at all when I picked them up and threw them in and I certainly don’t hide heads if they did have mixy they get flung in hedge for anything that wants to eat them, in fact I can’t remember the last mixy I shot..

These rabbits did not hang around because they had mixy, it was a factor of vehicle and NV/Thermal ... not because they all had mixy and were blind/confused and slow to run!!!

Is it just me or is there something in the water lately?

 

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13 hours ago, Alsone said:

I fully expect you to take a different view being a professional pest controller, although a loss of shooting means a loss of income for you.

Rats yes. The other species you list are more nuisances to people and their activities in growing crops / maintaining golf courses, than dangers to public health. If you were to take a nationwide poll of the whole population then I'd reckon a very high percentage of the population, and certainly a majority would say that ALL pest control should be banned, and that farmers should just have to live with nature and the losses that result. I wouldn't be surprised to see it at or approaching 90%. That's not a view I take, but we live in a country that everyday is turning more and more against any means of controlling the countryside, even where it is to correct an imbalance (most people don't appreciate the relationship between crops, food supply and pests and are swayed by urban conservationists arguments).

Yes I'm fully aware of the position 60 years ago between the Government, public and rabbits. But that was 60 years ago and attitudes have changed. No government could ever consider such an introduction today. Look at the controversy just a small limited badger cull has caused. Attitudes have changed and most urban people see all animals as small and cuddly and that nature should be allowed to take it's course no matter what the consequences. I know a golf club groundsman and even he tells me he finds rabbits cute and is reluctant to allow anyone to control them. As for deer, he prefers to use shields around young trees.

Also, to see attitudes just look at the flurry of Shark Attacks in the Northern Territories in Australia or on Re-union island. Despite multiple deaths, a large proportion of the population think the sharks shouldn't be culled. That's the way attitudes have changed. They'd rather people were eaten or banned from swimming than have wildlife displaced or removed.

Ultimately there will be more and more calls for shooting to be banned (including pest control), and ultimately if shooting is not shown to be contributing to conservation but instead wiping out species in some areas, then it only feeds the antis and the calls for a ban. If shooting survives another 50 years in this country without being totally banned, I'll be very surprised in any event.

 

 

You have a fertile, misled, imagination and frankly don't seem to have a clue about the real world.   You think 90% of people want Pest Control banned! :laugh:  When did you last see a Tree Huggers March trying to save the Rabbit, Grey Squirrel, Mink, Signal Crayfish, Rat, Canada Goose, etc etc etc?

Whatever you think peoples attitude might be about Pest Control I can assure you it is not evident when a rat is running around their kitchen, a wasp nest turns up, the fox eats the childrens pet chickens, the deer ruin the golf greens (it's Hoof damage to the Greens that are the biggest concerns, not the odd sapling), the rabbit dig holes around the stables, the pigeon is shitting on the fresh foods counters at Sainsburys, etc etc etc etc etc.

I have NEVER had a loss of shooting or any other Pest Control work because I did a job well, quite the contrary, I get more work that way.

Crack on with your imagination, show me some evidence where we have wiped out ANY species in this country by shooting!  Whatever you THINK, I can assure you we are barely holding our own in Pest Control, and particularly by way of shooting rabbits (and deer....   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/8830129/Deer-cause-up-to-74000-road-accidents-a-year.html), we are losing, the population is steadily increasing!

BAN Pest Control and your house, shops, restaurants, takeways, pubs, etc etc and the countryside will be alive before you know it!  Ask those 90% you think want Pest Control banned their views on that!  Farmers use Pest Control primarily for cost savings, crop protection/maximization (I include livestock of all types in "Crop" here as well), without it, virtually everything farm produced would increase in price in the shops.  Ask those 90% of people who you think want Pest Control banned if they would be prepared to pay 10-30% more for everything and see what they say then about a ban on Pest Control!

I take it you still don't have a FAC, no doubt your contribution to wildlife conservation!

Your Naivety appears boundless!

Edited by Deker
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Good argument here as usual, when Deker is involved.

I listened to a repeat of a question on the Jeremy Vine lunchtime radio show last week, regarding fox hunting and control. On one side was a lady farmer who had lost 30 out of 200 lambs put out last spring, taken by foxes with cubs on their land, who wanted control and an anti, who said that raising and killing animals for meat was wrong. No lambs, no fox problem. That's what we are up against, antis get air time. I do not shoot foxes unless asked. One of my permissions is used for breeding horses. Sometimes the mares miscarry and he buries the carcasses. (probably illegal) He has a fox problem, digging them up. They were so tame , I shot five in daylight with the HMR. They keep coming back.

On one of my permissions in the Chilterns they had a massive problem with rabbits and over 5 years reduced them from 150 shot a year to about 5 a year, a story I have repeated many times on other sites. I left the Chiltern permission for a year to repopulate, only to be told by the farmer, that he and his neighbour had paid for them to be gassed. I was gutted, but it was my own fault. I had forgotten, why I was on the land. It was to kill rabbits, not harvest them.

On the subject of NV, due to publishing a fishing book this year, I have some spare cash coming in every month and have invested in an IR NV scope add on, with which I hoped to increase my tally on my night time only permission. This is on a public sports ground, where the council would be very embarrassed, if it became public knowledge that they allowed me to cull the rabbits, that had been damaging their pitches. A step up from the torch, that has done a good job so far.

I am not a paid pest controller, shooting only for meat. A social visit to one of the landowners at the week end, has given me two more recommendations to shoot. Success brings success.

 

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If memory serves, and nothing has changed legally since I transplanted myself to the colonies, there are several laws on the books that specifically mention rats and rabbits. There is certainly no stomach to repeal those and even the organic granola crunching billionaires who sell their new religion realise that you have to pay money to the rat man regardless of your ethics.

I still cannot understand Britains love for Disneyfying everything, and it's a notation in a giant list of reasons for me not living there anymore, but with the public's lack of stomach for anything other than a complete noninterventionist environmental approach NV/TI is here to stay. If you're in this business then utilising these devices is simply another tool in the box to do what you do successfully and stealthily. It's a battle of hearts and minds and these tools allow the contractor to go about their business while the fluffy bunny brigade is safely tucked in behind the internet.

Interesting reading, gentlemen! :thumbs:

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10 hours ago, kenj said:

Good argument here as usual, when Deker is involved.

I listened to a repeat of a question on the Jeremy Vine lunchtime radio show last week, regarding fox hunting and control. On one side was a lady farmer who had lost 30 out of 200 lambs put out last spring, taken by foxes with cubs on their land, who wanted control and an anti, who said that raising and killing animals for meat was wrong. No lambs, no fox problem. That's what we are up against, antis get air time. I do not shoot foxes unless asked. One of my permissions is used for breeding horses. Sometimes the mares miscarry and he buries the carcasses. (probably illegal) He has a fox problem, digging them up. They were so tame , I shot five in daylight with the HMR. They keep coming back.

On one of my permissions in the Chilterns they had a massive problem with rabbits and over 5 years reduced them from 150 shot a year to about 5 a year, a story I have repeated many times on other sites. I left the Chiltern permission for a year to repopulate, only to be told by the farmer, that he and his neighbour had paid for them to be gassed. I was gutted, but it was my own fault. I had forgotten, why I was on the land. It was to kill rabbits, not harvest them.

On the subject of NV, due to publishing a fishing book this year, I have some spare cash coming in every month and have invested in an IR NV scope add on, with which I hoped to increase my tally on my night time only permission. This is on a public sports ground, where the council would be very embarrassed, if it became public knowledge that they allowed me to cull the rabbits, that had been damaging their pitches. A step up from the torch, that has done a good job so far.

I am not a paid pest controller, shooting only for meat. A social visit to one of the landowners at the week end, has given me two more recommendations to shoot. Success brings success.

 

Maybe a larger calibre or a few more hours on the targets may help lol..................................sry could'nt resist it's in my nature :thumbs:

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HaHa deswal. You must have been watching West World. Shot through the bib at 50 yards, they don't go far. This was a group, 1 vixen, 1 dog, two cubs and a smaller female. Shot over three hours. One ran off. As I said they seemed tame. There were plenty of rabbits in this blackthorn for a successful den and saw more on the permission over the summer, getting another dog and two females, while waiting for rabbits.

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9 hours ago, kenj said:

HaHa deswal. You must have been watching West World. Shot through the bib at 50 yards, they don't go far. This was a group, 1 vixen, 1 dog, two cubs and a smaller female. Shot over three hours. One ran off. As I said they seemed tame. There were plenty of rabbits in this blackthorn for a successful den and saw more on the permission over the summer, getting another dog and two females, while waiting for rabbits.

:laugh: I was going to bring that up myself, (I get this was a little light baiting), seems every time I mention the HMR (or .22LR) which I take a lot of foxes with, I get a lecture from those that tell me it doesn't work! :laugh:

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Here's some more the HMR didn't work on! :hmm::laugh::thumbs:

 

Anyway, this thread is wondering, and I accept a level of it is my fault.  ATB!

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On 1/1/2018 at 08:03, Deker said:

You have a fertile, misled, imagination and frankly don't seem to have a clue about the real world.   You think 90% of people want Pest Control banned! :laugh:  When did you last see a Tree Huggers March trying to save the Rabbit, Grey Squirrel, Mink, Signal Crayfish, Rat, Canada Goose, etc etc etc?

Your Naivety appears boundless!

Deker, the rise of the animal hugging brigade in this country is enormous.

If you think the urban population is on your side, then just look at the comments below this article on Grouse Hunting in the Guardian, which arguably has quite an upper / middle class / more shooting orientated audience: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/12/grouse-shooting-glorious-twelfth-times-up-for-inglorious-victorian-sport

Almost overwhelming support for a ban on shooting and grouse shooting, and eco conservation mentioned several times as justification for leaving the countryside alone along with lots of praise for Chris Packam.

Elsewhere in the world (because I mentioned it above!) Following 7 fatal shark attacks in Northern Australia in just 3 years (plus many more non fatal), a cull was planned, but has been met by massive opposition even from some people who've been victims of attacks with mass protests and placards such as Whites have rights: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26937924 . These are not animals messing up crops, these are animals eating people but the anti-control message is now so strong amongst many urban conservationists, that even deaths are no longer enough to justify lethal control.

You shoot for a living, you're a pest controller, you're countrified, you have a certain perspective. I live in a large urban city and largely mix with urban dwellers. I don't know of anyone who doesn't already shoot who supports any form of lethal pest control for anything other than some insect species, or even gun ownership anymore. I even had a neighbour express her displeasure at me putting ant poison down last summer!!! Never mind the ants were breeding on my drive with colonies underground and in such numbers they were in danger of invading my home. It was poor ants, you be ashamed of killing them, and leave them alone!

Amongst my own relatives and friends I know, not one child is even allowed to own a toy gun never mind play with one, as even toy guns lead to violence and children becoming violent / killers according to the new socialist beliefs.

The antis are winning the propaganda battle big time amongst the urban population because the urban population believe conservation = saving everything - they don't understand how man has put the countryside out of balance and that control needs to be applied to actually keep a balance, and the urban population far outweighs the country folk in both numbers and weight of views, and yes I do know plenty of people who would object to the killing of grey squirrels, deer, and Mink. I'd find it hard not to find anyone that didn't. Rats and crayfish, maybe not, and geese, well maybe not around Christmas!

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This thread has gone well off topic. The HMR is an ideal long range rabbit rifle, which does little damage to meat with head and upper chest shots. Having said that the anti brigade are winning. Otters are getting out of control, but we can't touch them, same with cormorants. My club tried to get a license to shoot them, but it was like trying to push water up hill. I keep quiet about my shooting. "Rabbits and fox. How could you? I thought that you were a nice person!" etc. Just wait until they find out about the thousands of peasants being buried after shoots, because even the game dealers don't want them. 

That will do, I'd better get back to my knitting.

Happy New Year Folks

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11 hours ago, Alsone said:

Deker, the rise of the animal hugging brigade in this country is enormous.

If you think the urban population is on your side, then just look at the comments below this article on Grouse Hunting in the Guardian, which arguably has quite an upper / middle class / more shooting orientated audience: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/12/grouse-shooting-glorious-twelfth-times-up-for-inglorious-victorian-sport

Almost overwhelming support for a ban on shooting and grouse shooting, and eco conservation mentioned several times as justification for leaving the countryside alone along with lots of praise for Chris Packam.

Elsewhere in the world (because I mentioned it above!) Following 7 fatal shark attacks in Northern Australia in just 3 years (plus many more non fatal), a cull was planned, but has been met by massive opposition even from some people who've been victims of attacks with mass protests and placards such as Whites have rights: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26937924 . These are not animals messing up crops, these are animals eating people but the anti-control message is now so strong amongst many urban conservationists, that even deaths are no longer enough to justify lethal control.

You shoot for a living, you're a pest controller, you're countrified, you have a certain perspective. I live in a large urban city and largely mix with urban dwellers. I don't know of anyone who doesn't already shoot who supports any form of lethal pest control for anything other than some insect species, or even gun ownership anymore. I even had a neighbour express her displeasure at me putting ant poison down last summer!!! Never mind the ants were breeding on my drive with colonies underground and in such numbers they were in danger of invading my home. It was poor ants, you be ashamed of killing them, and leave them alone!

Amongst my own relatives and friends I know, not one child is even allowed to own a toy gun never mind play with one, as even toy guns lead to violence and children becoming violent / killers according to the new socialist beliefs.

The antis are winning the propaganda battle big time amongst the urban population because the urban population believe conservation = saving everything - they don't understand how man has put the countryside out of balance and that control needs to be applied to actually keep a balance, and the urban population far outweighs the country folk in both numbers and weight of views, and yes I do know plenty of people who would object to the killing of grey squirrels, deer, and Mink. I'd find it hard not to find anyone that didn't. Rats and crayfish, maybe not, and geese, well maybe not around Christmas!

Seeing as you chose to quote an extract of my post, let me repeat it.....

"You have a fertile, misled, imagination and frankly don't seem to have a clue about the real world.   You think 90% of people want Pest Control banned! :laugh:  When did you last see a Tree Huggers March trying to save the Rabbit, Grey Squirrel, Mink, Signal Crayfish, Rat, Canada Goose, etc etc etc?

Your Naivety appears boundless!"

I note you conveniently ignored the specific points raised in my posts!   Your ignorance and assumption appear to know no bounds, probably around 90% of my work is Domestic and Commercial and I live in an urban sprawl of what was the biggest housing estate in Europe when it was built!  To suggest I am countrified is assumption gone mad,  just another of your wild incoherent ramblings based on where you imagination wants to take you to serve your purpose!

What has Grouse Hunting got to do with Pest Control, and what has Shark attacks the other side of the world got to do with Pest Control here, what has a ban on Fox Hunting (always misrepresented, it isn't just about foxes) got to do with Pest Control, foxes are still dealt with in every way in this country not outlawed by the Act!? 

Pest Control is NOT RESTRICTED TO THE COUNTRYSIDE, open your eyes!  I note even you have been selective in Pest Control being ok for some things...typical example of "oh that's different"!   So, what is different and why, I destroy a wasp nest with 5000 wasps or I shoot 1 deer, assuming both are causing a problem requiring them to be removed as Pest Control? 

You need to reign in your imagination and stop writing in a manner purporting to be fact, just because your friends don't want their children to play with toys guns has no connection with your suggestion that 90% of people want Pest Control banned.   Read my posts!

Have a nice day.

Edited by Deker
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I agree pest control is not restricted to the countryside, but we were talking about rabbits, deer and mink, not your typical urban pests and not ones you'll find much support for controlling them from city folk. Rabbits are seen as cute and cuddly rabbit hutch pets, deer as Bambi and Mink as victims of fur farming. City folk neither see nor care about the destruction they do. Equally grouse and shark show the change in views, no-one was suggesting they amounted to pest control, although in Aus, the latter might fall into that category! If you get a call to a shark in a house in a UK city, I'd certainly be interested to go along! For sure, people en masse are not going to object to the destruction of wasps nests or rats in people's roofs. On the rest though, you have a perspective, I have another one based on the way my own friends, neighbours, and the views in many papers I read have changed in the last 2 years. Certainly in the North and in the papers I read and on social media, the views have changed within the last couple of years and not for the better from a shooting perspective. People I knew not long ago that only wanted to save the whale or the dolphin, now want to save anything that could be considered cute and cuddly, and some creatures that definitely aren't,  and believe nothing should ever be killed for any reason. More and more people support conservation and hold the view that conservation = killing / controlling nothing, but simply leaving the countryside to find it's own balance. They simply don't realise the countryside is already unbalanced through mans farming activities. In my experience the swing is large. I currently have a lot of contact and conversations with people walking in a National Park. Not one person I've spoken to in the last couple of years has believed in shooting (read pest control) in the countryside. In fact my local National Park is managed by the RSPB, who have a visitor education centre in the park......, and all of whom were really friendly then stopped speaking to me as soon as they found out I used to shoot.......

For the sake of the thread, I'm not going to continue to argue. .back to the HMR.....

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