joeshaw08

SOLD.

1 polecat jill and 1 albino hob for sale. The hob has had a vasectomy, but the jill is untouched. I used to work the ferrets but due to other commitments I no longer have the time. They have a lovely temperament and can be kept either as pets or for working. The hob is BIG but can work the burrows well still. £10 for the pair is all I'm after. I'm in Allesley, Coventry. PM me if you're interested and i'll send you the full adress. Cheers, Joe.

I've gone with 22, as it's just what i'm used to. Also it has that extra stopping power behind it.

I picked it up brand new for £530 which came with a hawke scope, but I had to buy a moderator and 3 litre diving bottle on top of that so it was about £800 in total. They're not cheap but it's worth every penny.

I've been wanting to buy a new air rifle for a while now, and I finally got down the gun shop and purchased my new baby - the s410, and have not been disappointed! It literally is hole for hole accuracy, it's nice and light and almost completely silent, a hell of a difference to the spring loaded air rifles that i've had in the past...I couldnt believe the difference! So I thought I'd take it out for a spin, lamping the bunnies. I managed 4 last night, could have been more if I could shoot straight standing up. (must get a bipod!) I was very happy with the accuracy, however as I was using the lamp I could see the path of the pellet and where it made contact with the rabbits. One thing I did find, which happened a few times, was that the bunnies seemed to dodge the pellets. They'd obviously heard the shot and ran off before the pellet hit. Does anybody else find this, or is the gun not putting out enough ft/lbs? I know Air Arms manufacture all there guns to about 11.6, but it doesn't seem right that the bunnies are managing to dodge my shots! Apart from the odd few lighting fast rabbits, the others went down beautifully without a fuss.

I've noticed this with a few pigeons when i've taken the breasts off, it doesnt seem that uncommon. No idea why though!

I worked them on Saturday, tried a few warrens but nothing showed! I was suprised as with this cold weather we're having I expected everything to be underground. No idea where they were hiding. The ferrets came up with no problems, but no clues to whether anything were down there. The jill started doing this funny dance when she popped out of the holes, I'm guessing this was just because she was excitable?! It was funny though. I will get finders eventually, but there are so expensive! Poor mans sport? I don't agree with that!!

I had been thinking of buying a couple of ferrets for a while and after a brilliant days Hawking on New Years eve, I finally decided to go for it. I bought the ferrets, a jill and a hob from Steve, the man in charge of the days hawking so I knew they would be from a good stock. They are settled in to there double decker pad with plenty of straw. (I am getting the Hob snipped). He has a good 40 or so years of ferreting experience behind him, and he swears by never using collars or ferret finders. And in all these years he has never lost a ferret! After doing some research before buying them I thought that the 'ferret finders' were an essential piece of kit, but he has told me not to bother...he does this for a living so I will take his word for it, but i'll be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about sending my new ferrets down a warren with no way of finding out where they are! Any of you out there also not bother with them? So, I have only been ferreting once, but of course we used Hawks and no nets. I have bought 10 Bisly purse nets and pegs from Ebay to get me started (nylon, hemp is far too expensive!). We plan to get them started on some small warrens, with the gun for any that may escape. I understand that if the ferret is down there still, then she will still be working. I will keep them fed as I've been told that starving them could result in lay ups and not being able to resist a free meal. But how long should I give it before I start panicking that she hasn't come up yet. I know if I had a collar I could locate her, and start the dig, but I don't have one. Also, we trap and kill grey squirrels at the country park I work at, so I thought it would be a good idea to take some home as ferret food. Do they like squirrel, does anybody use them as food for ferrets? I gut them first mind, as I've read that you shouldn't feed your ferrets nuts, just to be safe. The big day out is one day this weekend, I would appriciate ANY advice on the above topics, and tips to make the day go as smoothly as possible. Thanks, Joe

The poison is put into hoppers which are designed in such a way that only a squirrel or big rodent can get to it by using a weighted door and flap mechanism, so non target species aren't at risk.

I think I took it the wrong way, it's difficult to understand what tone is being used over a forum! We don't have any Reds down this way, but if ever we did they wouldn't stand a chance against the greys. They didn't have a go, they were just curious as to what was going on and to avoid any conflict we had to give them a sob story about an injured squirrel. I've mentioned it a few times now but we cannot use air rifles, hence why it is being done this way.

I agree, but I have already said that we are not allowed firearms on the site. Instead I am catching the squirrel and giving it a tap on the head with a priest. The squirrel is killed instantly with minimal suffering and it takes a few seconds. Who said about releasing them again?! I said I had 1 that managed to escape which couldnt be helped. I am fully aware it's my responsability and I appriciate your advice, but it's starting to sound like you're assuming I don't know how to treat them and that I'm in the wrong here?

We only use poison during a few months of the year to minimise secondary infection, March-August as it is against the law to use it any other time. Also we cannot use firearms on the site as it is open to the public 24/7, so risks of ricochets etc. Also as I am a student I don't have the power to make such decisions and let's just say the head ranger...well...he can't be ***** with the paperwork. I will be speaking with the park manager about it though and hopefully they'll be someway round it. We have started using live traps again and wow...they are brilliant! We put them out Friday morning and by lunch time we had trapped 8, only one trap was empty. I managed to dispatch 7 of them, but catching an angry squirrel in a cage is not an easy task and one managed to run up my arm and escape. (I will add them onto the squirrel tally) We did have one problem with 'Joe public'. They spotted me dispatching a squirrel and wanted to know what was going on, so my colleage told them we had found an injured squirrel and had to dispatch it. This is a big problem with using these traps, as the public have the image of a cute fluffy squirrel being caged and don't agree with the traps in the slightest. However these are proving to be the most effective ways on control so far! Cheers, Joe

That looks good, similar to the kind we're using just upside down. I don't think the public will like seeing the squirrels hanging like that mind suppose I could make some casing though...

Unfortunatly it's council owned, so they see public, guns = no way. I've suggested campaigning for it, but in the meantime it's trapping only. In theory it should be as simple as you've just said, but the amount of paperwork, health and safety and everything else that goes with it is unreal!

Hi there, not sure if this topic belongs in this section so Mods feel free to move it. I'm a country park ranger and our site is over-run with greys, so we are taking action to remove them. We have used live traps in the past and they work quite well on the ground. However, we have limited supplies and the public often set them off, we have started using Fen traps (Mk 4's) in the tree's. Basically these are bird-box's with a hole in the top and a fen at the bottom, squirrel goes in on its way down from its drey and...squish, out of site from the public eye aswell. We've only just started using these, however we're not getting any results at the moment. The boxes were baited without the trap at first so they could get used to them, and the squirrels have been inside. However now the fens are in, they have become quite shy. We know this is probably a case of trial and error and they'll eventually get used to them. We've been watching which trees they use and place them under dreys to hopefully get maximum results, but there are so many of them! We've been racking our brains for other grey squirrel controlling techniques...we can't shoot them because of the public (if we could we would have 100 in a day easily), and we can't have fens on the ground because of dogs, kids etc. Have any of you got any ideas on other ways of trapping them? Any traps that you have used and have found works well? Bare in mind it has to be 'public friendly', and we cant shoot them. Thanks! P.S, we use poison aswell. Cheers, Joe