Second cut silage

[shovel leaner 7,648]

Just the two last night . No cubs ? A big dog and a small vixen , she has had cubs but where are they ? Who knows , I dare say our paths will cross soon enough . Set off about 11.30 . Snoozed in the chair all evening, the Mrs thanked me for my wonderful company as I left the house , muttering words like “don’t bother coming back, ya boring bar steward “. So refreshed and awake I started my tour of the newly cut fields . Nothing on the first lap . Drove the mule into a narrow field with a muck heap in the middle , a quick scan with the thermal, nothing . Then I noticed some movement on the muck heap , because of the heat signature of the muck heap itself I hadn’t noticed Charlie curled up on top . An easy shot at no more than 60 meters and a vixen was in the bag . Back to doing a tour of the cut fields , and nothing for a while . 1.30am and I entered a field and spotted Charlie in the distance. One of the tenants has an annoying little yapping dog which they let wander about , and it was over the field letting the whole world know of my presence, I muttered a few ffffs as Charlie disappeared through a hedge . I wizzed around the other side and sure enough there he was . Another easy shot and he was down . There is a national trust car park next to the shoot which attracts Kids smoking dope and sh@ggers at night , and I’ve notices a lot of fast food wrappers about . Well so has Charlie cos there were two in the car park with one with its head in the bin . Tried calling them on to my patch but they were having none of it . So I called it a night.ATB

[Stavross 13,711]

Nice work, I’m enjoying your write ups, looking forward to the next instalment 

[ianm 2,594]

34 minutes ago, shovel leaner said:

I only shoot foxes that are causing a problem. If like you say it’s an arable Farm , they do no damage , I leave them alone . I shoot foxes on the pheasant shoot I keeper , a chicken farm and I also help a  keeper mate on the next door shoot . Fox shooting has become a sport in its own right now , but we must be responsible and only target foxes that are causing damage or have the potential to cause damage . Shooting them for just target practice seems wrong to me . 

 

 

Every fox breathing has the potential to cause damage and generally do. Having been on the receiving end of said damage more than once i will take every opportunity to kill a fox whenever presented. Whether this is on arable or not, i shoot a variety of land for fox and they do damage irrespective of where they are.

[shovel leaner 7,648]

2 minutes ago, Stavross said:

Nice work, I’m enjoying your write ups, looking forward to the next instalment 

 

2 minutes ago, Stavross said:

Nice work, I’m enjoying your write ups, looking forward to the next instalment 

Thanks for all your “likes” . This could be the start of a wonderful “bromance “. I’ll kick my Mrs out and you can move in

[shovel leaner 7,648]

7 minutes ago, ianm said:

 

 

Every fox breathing has the potential to cause damage and generally do. Having been on the receiving end of said damage more than once i will take every opportunity to kill a fox whenever presented. Whether this is on arable or not, i shoot a variety of land for fox and they do damage irrespective of where they are.

Sorry pal but I don’t agree. On arable land growing say wheat . Foxes do more good by keeping rabbit numbers down surely? Everything in nature balances itself out . If you start putting pheasant down you create an unnatural amount of food and you get loads of foxes move in . So you have to deal with them , same with chickens and sheep . But on a dairy or beef farm or arable with no shooting interests , I can see no reason to shoot foxes . “Leave them for the terrier boys”!

[Mickle123 769]

1 hour ago, shovel leaner said:

Just the two last night . No cubs ? A big dog and a small vixen , she has had cubs but where are they ? Who knows , I dare say our paths will cross soon enough . Set off about 11.30 . Snoozed in the chair all evening, the Mrs thanked me for my wonderful company as I left the house , muttering words like “don’t bother coming back, ya boring bar steward “. So refreshed and awake I started my tour of the newly cut fields . Nothing on the first lap . Drove the mule into a narrow field with a muck heap in the middle , a quick scan with the thermal, nothing . Then I noticed some movement on the muck heap , because of the heat signature of the muck heap itself I hadn’t noticed Charlie curled up on top . An easy shot at no more than 60 meters and a vixen was in the bag . Back to doing a tour of the cut fields , and nothing for a while . 1.30am and I entered a field and spotted Charlie in the distance. One of the tenants has an annoying little yapping dog which they let wander about , and it was over the field letting the whole world know of my presence, I muttered a few ffffs as Charlie disappeared through a hedge . I wizzed around the other side and sure enough there he was . Another easy shot and he was down . There is a national trust car park next to the shoot which attracts Kids smoking dope and sh@ggers at night , and I’ve notices a lot of fast food wrappers about . Well so has Charlie cos there were two in the car park with one with its head in the bin . Tried calling them on to my patch but they were having none of it . So I called it a night.ATB

Another good result mate and cracking read, I’m sure your paths will most definitely cross perhaps sooner than you might expect with the un accounted for Cubs. 

[ianm 2,594]

2 hours ago, shovel leaner said:

Sorry pal but I don’t agree. On arable land growing say wheat . Foxes do more good by keeping rabbit numbers down surely? Everything in nature balances itself out . If you start putting pheasant down you create an unnatural amount of food and you get loads of foxes move in . So you have to deal with them , same with chickens and sheep . But on a dairy or beef farm or arable with no shooting interests , I can see no reason to shoot foxes . “Leave them for the terrier boys”!

 

 

Well we will just have to agree to disagree. Unfortunately everything in nature doesn't balance itself out that is a myth perpetuated by the anti brigade, the likes of Packham et al. 

Badgers are a prime example of not self regulating or balancing out as you put it. Because of the amount of protection they receive they have bred to phenomenal numbers and consequently "hoovered" up everything on the ground in those areas. The increase in badger numbers is to the detriment of a lot of other species, the same can be said of buzzards, sparrowhawks etc. However we can't do anything about those but can control the number of foxes.

 

Where i kill fox on arable land the amount of other widlife that has benefited is visible for all to see. There are no rabbits at all on this ground so hares ( which the landowners want to see more of)  partridge, lapwings, larks etc would take a beating from fox  if not controlled.  Foxes on beef or dairy farms present a danger to livestock by carrying neospora a disease which livestock owners really don't want. One of the shoots i control fox on is eight thousand acres of mostly dairy or beef production with a little bit of sheep rearing as well. The keeper who was a very keen terrier man said it takes too much time to control with terriers, his words where    "you will have shot ten foxes and i will have snared five by the time someone has found and dug one, there is no shortage of them so keep killing them".

[shovel leaner 7,648]

3 minutes ago, ianm said:

 

 

Well we will just have to agree to disagree. Unfortunately everything in nature doesn't balance itself out that is a myth perpetuated by the anti brigade, the likes of Packham et al. 

Badgers are a prime example of not self regulating or balancing out as you put it. Because of the amount of protection they receive they have bred to phenomenal numbers and consequently "hoovered" up everything on the ground in those areas. The increase in badger numbers is to the detriment of a lot of other species, the same can be said of buzzards, sparrowhawks etc. However we can't do anything about those but can control the number of foxes.

 

Where i kill fox on arable land the amount of other widlife that has benefited is visible for all to see. There are no rabbits at all on this ground so hares ( which the landowners want to see more of)  partridge, lapwings, larks etc would take a beating from fox  if not controlled.  Foxes on beef or dairy farms present a danger to livestock by carrying neospora a disease which livestock owners really don't want. One of the shoots i control fox on is eight thousand acres of mostly dairy or beef production with a little bit of sheep rearing as well. The keeper who was a very keen terrier man said it takes too much time to control with terriers, his words where    "you will have shot ten foxes and i will have snared five by the time someone has found and dug one, there is no shortage of them so keep killing them".

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, in particular, Badgers, Buzzards etc . But I haven’t had one farmer ask me to shoot foxes because his cattle have got neospora which he thought came from foxes . Thermal image scopes and spotters in the hands of indiscriminate shooters “have “ had an impact on fox numbers . They don’t breed like rabbits and my concern is that levels in the countryside may not be sustainable if continued shooting is going on . Talk to terrier men and huntsmen. Some of their best hunting has been wiped out because of what they call “the midnight cowboys “. The fox is a survivor, that’s a fact , but what we will see is areas devoid of a viable fox population, and that’s not good for anyone.

[Meece 1,957]

Yes. Sometimes it all seemed to be a bit futile and that we were battling nature. Again at certain times of the year when the poults were in the pens and the cub/young foxes were getting out and about it was important to control them. If a cub got into a big pen they could go into kill mode and just kill to a standstill.

[Stavross 13,711]

Up my way over the past 10 years or so we have noticed a decline in the number of foxes I think some of this is down to people I have know over the years that we’re  predominantly rabbit shooters, all want to be out after fox now almost trophy hunting and if you are treating this like a sport rather that pest control as I do then you need to manage your quarry, it wouldn’t make me happy in any way to see them wiped out, I have a fair bit of arable and I don’t tend to actively look for fox on it, that’s not to say I wouldn’t shoot one if I came across it but sometimes it’s just nice to watch them, as for badgers since the protection they have became a massive problem around me with no natural predators they have been left to do as they please, in my opinion they are a much bigger threat to ground nesting birds than fox and you should be able to control them, like anything else within reason