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Like him or loath him, thought some might enjoy this vid


islandgun
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sad that the population has taken such a dip.Most of us await the  population bounceback and despite the understandable  farming reluctance to see rabbits on the land  my personal opinion is that one day--we may rely on rabbit again as we once did.

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1 hour ago, bishop said:

sad that the population has taken such a dip.Most of us await the  population bounceback and despite the understandable  farming reluctance to see rabbits on the land  my personal opinion is that one day--we may rely on rabbit again as we once did.

 

Dream on, have you seen the decline in their numbers? 

Down over 88% in the North. 

 

The mixture of Mixi and RHD has wiped them out almost, and whilst there are pockets in places, the numbers across the country are nothing like they ever used to be. 

I doubt they will ever get back to how they used to be. 

 

You used to have fantastic sport shooting walked up rabbit over spaniels, good luck trying to find that now. 

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49 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

 

Dream on, have you seen the decline in their numbers? 

Down over 88% in the North. 

 

The mixture of Mixi and RHD has wiped them out almost, and whilst there are pockets in places, the numbers across the country are nothing like they ever used to be. 

I doubt they will ever get back to how they used to be. 

 

You used to have fantastic sport shooting walked up rabbit over spaniels, good luck trying to find that now. 

You might be right .however i met a muppet boasting of taking 250 in one  night the other weekl. That  ,if true, shows there are large numbers in some areas still. 

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1 hour ago, bishop said:

You might be right .however i met a muppet boasting of taking 250 in one  night the other weekl. That  ,if true, shows there are large numbers in some areas still. 


Let’s hope so 🤞🏻
 

Half the problem these days is they get hammered. 
 

Where as before people would shoot a few for the pot, we now get lads with night vision and thermal going out and shooting triple figures. 
 

Lads lamping them non stop, and then the diseases on top. 
 

Would love to see them return in decent numbers. 

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Don't think my farmer friend would agree with you there seeing the large half moons of bare ground along one hedgerow in a wheat field.  Unfortunately it is smack in the middle of a village almost surrounded by houses and very difficult to shoot. Ferrets and nets would work.  Numbers go up and down in my own ground at home and probably the resident buzzards thin them out a bit. They don't cause me a probelm so I leave them alone.

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2 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:


Let’s hope so 🤞🏻
 

Half the problem these days is they get hammered. 
 

Where as before people would shoot a few for the pot, we now get lads with night vision and thermal going out and shooting triple figures. 
 

Lads lamping them non stop, and then the diseases on top. 
 

Would love to see them return in decent numbers. 

There pest’s to the farmers 

no difference between 100 pigeons in a session and a hundred rabbits 

If there damaging a crop 

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3 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:


Let’s hope so 🤞🏻
 

Half the problem these days is they get hammered. 
 

Where as before people would shoot a few for the pot, we now get lads with night vision and thermal going out and shooting triple figures. 
 

Lads lamping them non stop, and then the diseases on top. 
 

Would love to see them return in decent numbers. 

So would I Lloyd.

I dream for a return to the numbers in the late 70's and 80's but alas, I agree that I also cannot see the country ever returning to those era numbers.

Only a few weeks ago whilst out walking through our village and surrounding locality I must have easily passed 30-40 plus fields which back in the day all harboured rabbits, some of the fields had excellent numbers over them years back then. It would appear then that many of these strongholds would never reduce down below a certain amount of rabbits and every five or six years or so would produce a bumper crop of rabbits. These stronghold areas would then feed out buck rabbits to the surrounding areas which when thinned down would be replenished again from the main areas.

These fields are a mixture of arable, dairy, school fields, fenced paddocks, local parks and some industrial areas. As of today you are lucky to see a sign or sight of a single rabbit on them. Some of them are now totally devoid. Of all our local countryside lanes you could not drive more than 50 feet without finding a squashed rabbit. As of today that is now a rare sight. 

Back in the decades I spoke about, we would ferret the large warrens around twice yearly and the smaller warrens once yearly using nets some days and bolting rabbits to the 12bore other days. Lamping with our dogs one/twice a week on average October to February depending on favourable weather, a good gusty night being the best. We would then pack up for the year with the ferrets and dogs and go over to night fishing, also doing the infrequent springtime rabbit job with the air rifles. 

I do not doubt that there are 'pockets' of good and at times excessive numbers to be found around the county but they are nowhere near spread across areas and in numbers as they once were. For sure they need controlling as any pest when numbers are up to limit the damage and I would be the first one up and at them.

I can recall when I lived in Tidworth, Shipton Bellinger in Salisbury in 1986 for about 15 months or so, slept on my uncles couch. I digress, anyway I used to walk on the plains all around the village and I had never seen such numbers of rabbits and I would think in my time left that I will never see numbers of the like again. 

The once ever present ultra ubiquitous rabbit is sadly no more.

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Back in the 50s my grandfather would snare 20-30 on a Friday evening and they would be gutted and then hung in the milk delivery van next morning to cover orders for the weekend / Sunday lunch from customers.  I followed him around the field with a hazel stick across my shoulders to help carry them home.

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6 hours ago, Walker570 said:

Back in the 50s my grandfather would snare 20-30 on a Friday evening and they would be gutted and then hung in the milk delivery van next morning to cover orders for the weekend / Sunday lunch from customers.  I followed him around the field with a hazel stick across my shoulders to help carry them home.

A fantastic memory of a very sensible practice, not long ago I was .22 shooting the plentiful rabbits here and turning them into pies and stews for happy customers, mixy went through all my areas, now i seldom see them, wondering if rhd is around

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The last 2 years I've seen more and more, a good gauge (for me) is the cat. He's managed 1 or 2 a week ever week for the last 4 months. Half to 3/4 grown. Not bad for his age. And he eats them, well their heads in any case. 

Most nights the verges are full of them over the wolds, 2 years ago I didn't see 1. 

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Interesting thing that I never knew, saw on the internet, and an ex-Army friend (twenty-two years in the Parachute Regiment) confirmed was true, is rabbit starvation. Which over history was fatal to a number of explorers and settlers. Apparently a continuous diet of rabbit meat is not good. As said in fact it is fatal as it takes more from the person eating it than it gives. Not a lot of people know that in the US Army survival manual is says that if the only source of food available is rabbit it is better not to eat at all. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning

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3 hours ago, enfieldspares said:

Interesting thing that I never knew, saw on the internet, and an ex-Army friend (twenty-two years in the Parachute Regiment) confirmed was true, is rabbit starvation. Which over history was fatal to a number of explorers and settlers. Apparently a continuous diet of rabbit meat is not good. As said in fact it is fatal as it takes more from the person eating it than it gives. Not a lot of people know that in the US Army survival manual is says that if the only source of food available is rabbit it is better not to eat at all. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning

I've heard of this, I think you need fat in your diet to absorb the vitamins and minerals on offer,  Vits A, D, E  are fat soluble.  just proves what we all know,  we need a balanced diet 

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5 minutes ago, islandgun said:

I've heard of this, I think you need fat in your diet to absorb the vitamins and minerals on offer,  Vits A, D, E  are fat soluble.  just proves what we all know,  we need a balanced diet 

Sausage, black pudding, eggs, chips and lots of drams eh??

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2 hours ago, Grandalf said:

Sausage, black pudding, eggs, chips and lots of drams eh??

Who doesn't like a fry up ? sadly for the last 15yrs or so I've also had to put up with the food i serve my customers, lobster, langoustine, crab, scallops, fish, venison or my home grown meat and veg.......  or rabbit 😁

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