Warwickshire hunt on towpath at Willoughby

[LadyG]

4 hours ago, David Schweizer said:

I would not argue with any farmer regarding his/her experience of stock safety. I can only reflect the experience of my son who breeds pedigree sheep in Northern Victoria, Australia, and looses quite a few healthy lambs each year to foxes. It has got to the stage where he has engaged the services of a game hunter who uses a shotgun to cull the local fox population. which is legal in Victoria.

I have no problem with that, but why does he not shoot them himself when he is out tending the sheep?

Certainly in this country, in my experience, they are fairly predictable, the dogs range far and wide and the vixens lie up in coverts.

Edited October 7, 2019 by LadyG

[Stilllearning]

3 minutes ago, Jess-- said:

we used to keep chickens which were (very) free range, in that at dawn the door to their coop opened and they were free to roam until dusk when the door closed, no fencing on our property or anywhere around us (this gave them woodland and open farmland to wander in)

even though we know there are foxes in the woodland about 300 yards away we lost more chickens to tractors than foxes (the chickens were smart enough to wait until the tractor had passed before crossing the track... only to be flattened by the trailer)

My parents had chickens in the orchard, foxes never got them, but the local badgers did, ripping open the corrugated iron roof to get at them. 

Mind you, the hens also had a bad habit of hanging themselves on the chicken wire....

[LadyG]

1 minute ago, Stilllearning said:

My parents had chickens in the orchard, foxes never got them, but the local badgers did, ripping open the corrugated iron roof to get at them. 

Mind you, the hens also had a bad habit of hanging themselves on the chicken wire....

Chicken wire is not suited for chickens for that reason. Badgers are indeed vicious, and are out of control in the UK, but they are seen as "really sweet" by folks who like to think nature has "good guys" and "bad guys" 

[Alan de Enfield]

20 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Chicken wire is not suited for chickens for that reason. Badgers are indeed vicious, and are out of control in the UK, but they are seen as "really sweet" by folks who like to think nature has "good guys" and "bad guys" 

The Badger problem can be cured by Paracetamol.

[rusty69]

5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The Badger problem can be cured by Paracetamol.

That's only for parrot problems shirley!

 

(Why are there no pain killers in the jungle? Because parrots-eat-em-all)

Edited October 7, 2019 by rusty69

[WotEver]

5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The Badger problem can be cured by Paracetamol.

????

[tree monkey]

3 minutes ago, WotEver said:

????

I suggest over indulging in Badger beer, something I was very familiar with when I lived down south

[noddyboater]

9 hours ago, BWM said:

 not to forget the many pets and other unfortunate animals the pack encounter

I’m sure this does happen but I can honestly say the pack I encountered at Willoughby had no interest in anything other than the fox scent. 

They paid no attention to our boat with an open door and 2 dogs aboard, and once on the far bank ignored a pet goat in a garden, despite leaping over fences around it. The owner of the house was looking on as though she’d seen it before, not really too concerned. I was surprised by the size of the hounds up close, thinking they were the size of a beagle. These were bloody huge! 

[BWM]

1 hour ago, frangar said:

Mange is treatable in both foxes and dogs. I have no problem with them being fed in towns....they are however very adaptable and are quite capable of finding food in towns themselves! I’ve had close fox encounters with a pair in the underground car park at the excel conference centre in  londons dock lands and a Tesco car park in Basildon....plus they bask in my mother’s garden in urban Essex. Truly stunning to see. 

They are great at keeping rats at bay, we had two families of foxes in the business park behind our old mooring down south and never saw a rat. A local inbred with a nasty looking pitbull type dog chased them all off the site and soon after the mooring was awash with rats. I've seen similar situations on the railway when i worked there, normally losing the foxes during redevelopment. 

1 hour ago, LadyG said:

Chicken wire is not suited for chickens for that reason. Badgers are indeed vicious, and are out of control in the UK, but they are seen as "really sweet" by folks who like to think nature has "good guys" and "bad guys" 

 How on earth do you come up with a fairytale statement like the above? Since when have the shy creature known as the badger been dangerously out of control? They are a formidable opponent when cornered, hence the hideous practice of baiting - not much different in barbarity than Fauntleroys fox harassment really. 

  Unless you are referring to the entirely discredited bovine tuberculosis cobblers. Their local territory alone makes a mockery of that excuse for this posh boy orchestrated gun fest. The only difference between the bloodthirsty landowners and the badger baiters is one is born into money.

[David Schweizer]

1 hour ago, LadyG said:

I have no problem with that, but why does he not shoot them himself when he is out tending the sheep?

Certainly in this country, in my experience, they are fairly predictable, the dogs range far and wide and the vixens lie up in coverts.

He does not actually possess a gun or have licence, both of which can be rectified, but the foxes only attack at night, and it is very dark out in the bush. He has tried special lights which are supposed to scare the foxes, but they only worked for a few weeks, . The chap who is helping my son has special night vision video cameras which they are going to put up in the hope that they are able to identify the foxes pattern of movement. Once that is established they will lie in waiting in the dark and he will use night vision sights on his gun.  whether that will work remains to be seen. Then there is the problem of all thr Kangaroos eating the pasture grass, who would want to farm in Australia?

 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by David Schweizer

[tree monkey]

2 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

He does not actually possess a gun or have licence, both of which can be rectified, but the foxes only attack at night, and it is very dark out in the bush. He has tried special lights which are supposed to scare the foxes, but they only worked for a few weeks, . The chap who is helping my son has special night vision video cameras which they are going to put up in the hope that they are able to identify the foxes pattern of movement. Once that is established they will lie in waiting in the dark and he will use night vision sights on his gun.  whether that will work remains to be seen. Then there is the problem of all thr Kangaroos eating the pasture grass, who would want to farm in Australia?

 

 

Don't forget the drop bears, never forget the drop bears

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Don't forget the drop bears, never forget the drop bears

Look up. Stay alive!

[frangar]

7 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

He does not actually possess a gun or have licence, both of which can be rectified, but the foxes only attack at night, and it is very dark out in the bush. He has tried special lights which are supposed to scare the foxes, but they only worked for a few weeks, . The chap who is helping my son has special night vision video cameras which they are going to put up in the hope that they are able to identify the foxes pattern of movement. Once that is established they will lie in waiting in the dark and he will use night vision sights on his gun.  whether that will work remains to be seen. Then there is the problem of all thr Kangaroos eating the pasture grass, who would want to farm in Australia?

 

 

Maybe the wildlife....which let’s face it has a greater right to be there....is telling you something about how practical it is to keep livestock in the area. 

[David Schweizer]

Just now, frangar said:

Maybe the wildlife....which let’s face it has a greater right to be there....is telling you something about how practical it is to keep livestock in the area. 

It has been a family farm for over a hundred years, part of the problem is poor management by neighbouring land owners, who buy up small farms but do not farm them.

8 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Don't forget the drop bears, never forget the drop bears

Very funny, I wonder how many people got the joke.

[Graham Davis]

3 hours ago, David Schweizer said:

Actually it is remarkably similar in many ways, but possibly more arid and less populated.

 

 

That is nothing like around here!

[mrsmelly]

16 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

He does not actually possess a gun or have licence, both of which can be rectified, but the foxes only attack at night, and it is very dark out in the bush. He has tried special lights which are supposed to scare the foxes, but they only worked for a few weeks, . The chap who is helping my son has special night vision video cameras which they are going to put up in the hope that they are able to identify the foxes pattern of movement. Once that is established they will lie in waiting in the dark and he will use night vision sights on his gun.  whether that will work remains to be seen. Then there is the problem of all thr Kangaroos eating the pasture grass, who would want to farm in Australia?

 

 

Those southern hemisphere foxes are different to ours. Only three weeks ago we had a fox running off at lunchtime with a chicken after killing a couple of others en route. At least twice in early summer in broad daylight they came in. Funnily enough they didnt go near any of the new born lambs that we were hand rearing by bottle earlier in the year? I must say I thought they would have but was told they didnt normaly take the lambs?

[Machpoint005]

31 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Don't forget the drop bears, never forget the drop bears

 

Jagulars are real, though. They wait in trees and when people look up, they drop on them. 

 

"I'm looking DOWN", said Piglet. 

[David Schweizer]

49 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

That is nothing like around here!

Maybe not, but then I am not really familiar with Central Wales. However, it does share a lot of similarities with a farm I used to visit regularly in Pembrokeshire, a few miles inland from Goodwick.

42 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Those southern hemisphere foxes are different to ours. Only three weeks ago we had a fox running off at lunchtime with a chicken after killing a couple of others en route. At least twice in early summer in broad daylight they came in. Funnily enough they didnt go near any of the new born lambs that we were hand rearing by bottle earlier in the year? I must say I thought they would have but was told they didnt normaly take the lambs?

They are actually exactly the same species, having been introduced from England in the mid 19th century so that the immigrant gentry could pursue hunting. Ironicly North West Victoria, where my son farms, has one of the densest poulations of foxes.

 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by David Schweizer

[WotEver]

2 hours ago, tree monkey said:

I suggest over indulging in Badger beer, something I was very familiar with when I lived down south

Ahhh...

[Alan de Enfield]

3 hours ago, WotEver said:

????

Badgers do not 'do well' on Paracetamol.