Madcowz

Good news. Have you run an ultrasound? Have you organised a midwife? have you decorated the kits bedroom? Has she been moved indoors? I she being fed on only the finest organic food? :-) /Mad

Ben, I have your cheque sitting here but I need your surname on the cheque before I can post it (see PM) /Mad

Not there any more.. but used to live in Tayport opposite Dumpdee Spent many a winter on the foreshore of the Tay & Eden. /Mad

Right now I am having soo much fun shooting Squirrels! Damn hard to find them, track them and then shoot them. Sometimes have to wait a good half an hour for them to come out from behind the tree before I can get them. But normally, pigeons are my favourite. /Mad

Ok, have started work on the sheds now. Cleared out the inside and started on reroofing. Had to clear a large holly tree first before I could even get to the shed. Then rip off old roof which had a lining of asbestos (yuck). Just 2 panels up when I took this picture, although I have done 4 now. The welded mesh front is going to come off and be replaced with decent mesh, all looks a bit tatty just now. As i said earlier, if all this restoration timescale slips, and we all know things like this never run on time, I have been given a multi-storey rabbit run which I am going to use as a temporary hutch for the ferts. As you can see from the greenhouse next to it, it is very tall.

Don't do this just before a shoot though, otherwise the guns will be complaining about the poorly flying Pheasants! :-)

How did the meeting go tonight Gavin? /Mad

How very dare they.

17 That is a lot! Would love to see some pics of all them if you have any spare time. /mad EDIT: Oh, you need to change your sig!

Hi, I am just about to start work on converting an old shed into a ferret court and thought I would put up some pictures as a way of a picture diary. The shed in question is very large, and was used about 10-15 years ago to house poultry. Since then it has fallen into disrepair. It consists of four different sections, the last one being where I plan to have the ferrets, that way we can keep our wood store and tool storage areas. Anyway, here are some 'now' pictures. Starting from the left, the 1st section I have just finished slatting with wood from old pallets. I was trying to save money & recycle. It took weeks and was hard work, never again! Just needs to be felted and it is done. This is where we are going to store our gardening tools. Also in picture is one of four raised veg beds and to the left of that you can just about make out an old Bedford Plough I found when clearing the ground. 2nd section (bit with the corrugated roof) This is our wood storage area as it is the only dry bit. 3rd section (bit without a roof) This is going to be the ferts tools, food and net hanging area 4th section (hidden by holly) is going to be where the ferts live (also has no roof). This next picture shows the inside looking from the entrance Ok, now we are looking from the 3rd section into what will become the court. Now we are looking into the court area, though the door. As you can see, it is need of some ‘modernisation’ to use Estate Agent speak. I have just bought 7 sheets of OSB2 board to use as shuttering, so the inside will be completely fert proof. The floor is going to be dug out and concrete laid (borrowing a mates mixer for this). Will quickly knock up a door, replace the broken window, and use welded mesh on any other areas. As with the 3rd section, this also has no roof on. I have bought some corrugated plastic roofing and plan to make a start on this over the bank holiday w/end. The court will be under trees so won’t get too much sun. And finally, looking towards the 4th section from outside, where the holly tree is, is where the outdoor part of the court will be. This is phase 2 of the build as I want to concentrate on the indoor part first. The trellis panels on the left of the photo are the same as those in the 1st photo. As you can (just about) see, the shed continues for quite some distance here. Well, that is it for now. I am hoping to get this completed in time for the ferts. But I have a backup plan if my project slips. I have just been given a 4 storey rabbit hutch by someone on Freecycle. This stands higher than me, is in excellent condition and just needs the 4 hutches connected via ramps/tunnels and it is all ready for the wee things.

Or a lot of sitting around in freezing mud with very little shooting Damn good fun though /mad

Here you go:

This is mine, made out of Reindeer Antler, leather & wood. Got it in lapland many years ago. Not a great picture as wife has pinched the camera so had to use my pda.

Like the others have said, speak to your local gun shop and find out. They are normally a good source of info. (Too many shooting folk blethering away for hours) Wildfowling is great, I used to do it on the Tay & Eden about 15 years ago. Cold and wet but I still remember the hairs on the back of my neck going up as the geese start calling. /Mad

Have a watch of these videos: http://tv.player.countrychannel.tv/skins/0...r=countrysports

Ok, I have found where I went wrong. I had the trap the wrong way round. ie the spring was not parallel to the tunnel length.

Thanks for the replies guys. The tunnel is less than an inch higher than the trap when sprung and I do have sticks at either ends. We have too many chooks I don't want to lose. Will make another tunnel up tonight and have two traps on the go. Quite addictive this! /Mad

Ok, caught a rat by it's back leg last night, and it managed to crawl back under the chicken coop so all I could see was the leg and the trap. I shot it with the air rifle and despite it being a rat, and it having eaten loads of our chicken eggs, I still felt for it and don't want to cause any futher suffering to other rats. Made me feel quite sad really. Where did I go wrong? I was using a Mk4 Fenn in a tunnel, the trap was buried in the ground and then had a light covering of soil over the top. The tunnel was a little bit higher than the fenn when sprung. I know that the peg and chain needed to be tighter to stop the rats from reaching their hole, that is an easy one to fix. But why did it catch the leg, and not the main body? Are there any obvious things I did wrong? thanks, /Mad

I have been away on holiday and just found out the good news. Thank goodness, commonsense has won. As to the low turnout, I was amazed. Not only have I been actively trying to raise the awareness of this issue on forums, but also drove round 2 other CPSA members and got them to fill in their proxy forms and then I posted them (they weren't bovered). /Mad

Yup. We have a large garden with a similar large area to one side which was head high brambles two years ago. This is now our 'allotment'. I made raised beds out of the old sheds that were there before and our neighbour (the local herdsman) is very kind and drops us off a tonne scoop of poop every now and again. We had a fantastic amount of brussel sprouts last year and I was very excited thinking about my Christmas dinner with home grown organic sprouts, but the chickens found them and stripped them bare. I was very very close to wringing one of their necks and eating it for Chrissy so I could at least taste my sprouts. grrrr /Mad

I have one of my brand new mk4 fenn traps in a tunnel I made out of old pallets (had a few left over from re-roofing the shed). Buried it in a dip in the soil, covered it and put some cooked chicken on top. Sticks in front to stop other animals and nothing so far, but too be expected. Nearly caught my fingers as I was tempted by the lovely organic corn fed chicken I was using as bait. /Mad

And there was me thinking I was the only one who thought that way! /Mad

What about the stuff they use on cars to recycle exhaust gas when the engine is cold. Is a thin, flexible tube and comes in a variety of sizes. Not the strongest, but would be a start. EDIT: Is the pipe that goes from the EGR back to the manifold. Still can't remember the name. But, a stronger item to use would be Corrugated stainless steel gas tubing, have a google as there are loads of places selling it. /Mad

Just search for 'ferrets' in the Country Sports section. Sit back with a cup of tea and read every post. Great wealth of information. /Mad

Some links to views and opinions on the various sites: http://www.cpsa.co.uk/county/northamptonsh...&NLID=59384 http://www.claysporting.com/index.php?name...topic&t=166 http://www.claysporting.com/index.php?name...wtopic&t=36 From claysporting.com: "News has just reached me that the word coming out of CPSA HQ is that the name change WILL NOT go through. Proxys sent in by post have so far have been overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the name to CPSA. Apparentley my sources say that it is almost 3-1 against the proposal, here I do add a note of caution as would it suprise anyone that this may reverse physcology. Tell people that no way will it go through and all of a sudden a couple of hundred people don't bother going and bang it goes through. In the event of the above happening, I would not rejoice in a so called victory because as an organisation we have fought no anti lobby group just our own board who started this stupid proposal in the first place. How much time and money etc has been wasted already, checking the bins outside HQ might be a good idea on Monday morning. For me the arrogance shown by Boakes and Blainey has been incredible throughout this and its about time they started to realise who pays the wages, again I say they must go and now. I think they will try and smooth this out just to save their necks but it will be too little too late for me. PSST - want to buy some CTSA polo shirts, great for doing dirty work in."