How do you do It?!

[FrancoPepe 11]

Hello!

 

As I said in my presentation, I am from the Canary Islands. Here we also have ferrets to hunt rabbits, but I think the methods vary a lot from those used in other countries.

So my doubt is a bit general.... How do you do it?

At what age does the ferret go to the hole?! First with rabbits or with rats?! Do your ferrets have to face a bigger hunter, like a cat ?

 

Thanks.

[Guss33 375]

Welcome to the to the web site stick around you will learn a lot of good stuff on it. Well you are right from what I have seen on this site and also on YouTube things are different from country to country, the first thing I start my ferrets of at around 6 to 9 months old and as I bread my own I run them with their mother who is a great hunter, but when time comes to introducing them to my existing stock it is from time to time challenging from stoping them from punching on . The other main one is in most countries people use ferret locators on their ferrets and seem to do a lot of digging, where I live in Australia I have never seen a ferret locator used . For some reason I have never lost a ferret or being held up by one for a long period of time, and our ground is extremely hard and rocky, and you would not be able to dig them out by hand you would need a machine.                   Please people out their don’t think any less of me my ferrets are not just hunters but also part of the family with my kids. Apart from that everything thing else seems to be the same , their is always a different of opinion on what ferrets to use , I run cut hobs ( which we call in Australia cut bucks ) which stops them from fighting when they are in season and you can work them all year round and they are a little bigger and can Handel a thump from a rabbit. The Jill’s ( which we call does ) are great but you loose around 4 to 5 Months of the year with them as they have young ones and unable to work them , and for me we run up to 10 ferrets at one time depending on the size of the warrens. I have never encountered a cat but have had a Fox come jumping out into a long net , he met my shovel. And another problem is when using long nets or drop nets is the kangaroos getting tangled up , that has not happened to me and hope it never does. 

 

 

[Luckee legs 422]

Where I leave in the East of England it's very different to Canary isles. Typically the soil is easy for rabbits to dig and all my ferreting is in earth warrens. That makes it easy to use purse nets and long nets. Personally I like to use several 5m "long nets" strategically placed, a few purse nets to reduce hole hopping and that allows the dogs to work. For me it's effective and entertaining.

I enter ferrets in their first winter, so roughly 5 months old. I don't expect a lot from the first season and always have at least 2 experienced ferrets out on the same day. 

Entering is to rabbits and I wouldn't knowingly expose ferrets to other predators. As a teenager back in the time of the 3 day week and bin men strikes I did a lot of ferreting rats. It's great fun but hard on the ferrets and not something I seek out now. Occasional encounters are fine and where Gamebirds are being fed there's often rats in rabbit holes but this is a very different encounter compared to rat dug warrens which are narrow and easy to defend. 

Do you use nets or dogs in the Canary isles? 

[FrancoPepe 11]

26 minutes ago, Luckee legs said:

Where I leave in the East of England it's very different to Canary isles. Typically the soil is easy for rabbits to dig and all my ferreting is in earth warrens. That makes it easy to use purse nets and long nets. Personally I like to use several 5m "long nets" strategically placed, a few purse nets to reduce hole hopping and that allows the dogs to work. For me it's effective and entertaining.

I enter ferrets in their first winter, so roughly 5 months old. I don't expect a lot from the first season and always have at least 2 experienced ferrets out on the same day. 

Entering is to rabbits and I wouldn't knowingly expose ferrets to other predators. As a teenager back in the time of the 3 day week and bin men strikes I did a lot of ferreting rats. It's great fun but hard on the ferrets and not something I seek out now. Occasional encounters are fine and where Gamebirds are being fed there's often rats in rabbit holes but this is a very different encounter compared to rat dug warrens which are narrow and easy to defend. 

Do you use nets or dogs in the Canary isles? 

We don't put ferrets with other predators, they are usually accidents. The only predator that can be found in the cat, in some mountain of stones. Although lately it is also possible to find California king snakes.

 

Yes, mate, here we use dogs. Podenco, to locate and capture the rabbit, we do not have such a heterogeneous team as in England. The nets are not used, they are illegal in our community.

[TOMO 24,908]

i do like watching the YouTube films from Spain of ferreting and hunting with podencos ...and i have seen a few films from the canary islands...your ground is very hard and rocky ..looks difficult ground to hunt for the dogs and ferrets..

here in the uk most of our ferreting is in soil ... so we are lucky so we can use a ferret finder and dig a rabbit out if the ferret kills it underground ...sometimes the ferret will push several rabbits up a hole in to a dead end ...so you can then dig down  and retrieve a number of rabbits..

if you look through youtube you will be able to watch many uk ferreting men catching rabbits in a number of different ways ...from purse nets ...long nets ...and lurcher dogs 

any more questions just ask mate 

[FrancoPepe 11]

4 hours ago, TOMO said:

i do like watching the YouTube films from Spain of ferreting and hunting with podencos ...and i have seen a few films from the canary islands...your ground is very hard and rocky ..looks difficult ground to hunt for the dogs and ferrets..

here in the uk most of our ferreting is in soil ... so we are lucky so we can use a ferret finder and dig a rabbit out if the ferret kills it underground ...sometimes the ferret will push several rabbits up a hole in to a dead end ...so you can then dig down  and retrieve a number of rabbits..

if you look through youtube you will be able to watch many uk ferreting men catching rabbits in a number of different ways ...from purse nets ...long nets ...and lurcher dogs 

any more questions just ask mate 

Both partners have said that they put their ferrets in the hole from 5 months of age. Do you too? Do you do any specific training if you want to go after rats?!

I would like to hunt more ferret-focused than dog-focused. In our land the ferret is a mere auxiliary, not a major player.... The treatment given to them here is not as good as I see in countries like yours.

[FrancoPepe 11]

One more doubt... At what age do you start groping your ferrets?! When do you separate them from their mother?

[Guss33 375]

I seperate mine from their mother at around 8 to 10 weeks if I am going to sell the of. If I am keeping them I leave them with their mother and work them with her. In Australia we call it weening them of from their mother. The hardest thin I have found is introducing new young ferrets to my existing ones I use for hunting it takes a lot of perseverance swapping bedding around so the get use to the smells swapping them from cage to cage then introducing them to each other. That is the biggest challenge that I have found , but I did get a lot of good information and advice from other people from this site, that as probably the best information I got for that situation.

[Luckee legs 422]

12 hours ago, Guss33 said:

I seperate mine from their mother at around 8 to 10 weeks if I am going to sell the of. If I am keeping them I leave them with their mother and work them with her. In Australia we call it weening them of from their mother. The hardest thin I have found is introducing new young ferrets to my existing ones I use for hunting it takes a lot of perseverance swapping bedding around so the get use to the smells swapping them from cage to cage then introducing them to each other. That is the biggest challenge that I have found , but I did get a lot of good information and advice from other people from this site, that as probably the best information I got for that situation.

@FrancoPepe considering the climate differences I'd suggest if you are interested in improving ferret welfare these Aussie guys are worth keeping in touch with on specific cage design and dealing with hot weather.

Whatever setup you use I am convinced that the more exercise opportunities you build in the better the ferrets work. 

It's a real shame that ferret locators are out of production, i find them just as useful for working in brambles and farm buildings above ground. You can't always dog to them but you know where they are . Happy new year

[Guss33 375]

The well as you can see my cagers are around 4 foot long and around 18 inches wide they have wire mesh all round for ventilation,the double story cage has a water boll on both levels so just in case the ferret is unable to get from one level to another. During Summer I hang heshon bags over the front of the cages and wet them down. During the days we get the 4 or 5 day heat waves I run a sprinkler hose on the front of the cavers on low and for the young ones under around 10 weeks or under in age I Bot frozen bottles of water in the cage to help keeping them cool. Where I live in Australia the heat is only for around 2 to 3 months of the year on and of. Plenty of water always helps in the cages and the other one I have started to do is have wet rages in a kitty litter box and that seems to help a lot. If you want to get more adventurous build some boxes and join them up with pipes ,my kids have called it the ferrets training track. it’s quite entertaining watching the ferrets running around especially for the kids and when people come to visit. The one mistake I learnt was the floor of the cages at the start I had all timber floors , and the problem I had with the ferrets was they we’re getting foot rot once I changed it to wire mesh floors all the problems soon went away.Also fix their water bowls down as they tend to want to tip them over to play with, I have tried to put some toys in their cagers but I didn’t help. At least once a week I feed them a whole skinned rabbit but I tie it up so they have to work on it , I find by giving the rabbit at night time or very late in the day as it stops the flies from getting to it. I allow, quarter of a rabbit per ferret and that seems to fill them up. Once a week they get a feed of high quality kitten food with raw egg and pet mince , but make sure you read the content of the kitten food and that it’s made up of meat and not vegetables..between theses meals they are fed pet mince , kangaroo mince ( and yes we do sell our national animal in the suppers market) and venison. 

[Moocher71 4,044]

On 01/01/2022 at 13:41, FrancoPepe said:

We don't put ferrets with other predators, they are usually accidents. The only predator that can be found in the cat, in some mountain of stones. Although lately it is also possible to find California king snakes.

 

Yes, mate, here we use dogs. Podenco, to locate and capture the rabbit, we do not have such a heterogeneous team as in England. The nets are not used, they are illegal in our community.

I like watching Spanish hunting vids and I've also been out with a pack on mallorca few years ago ,they was bolting rabbits to podenco and it was a great day out , you certainly hunt some ruff ground , I think you would learn a lot from the oz keepers as they use to the temps and ruff ground bit like in Spain,  

Here in the UK we treat are working dogs and ferrets like the little hero's they really are