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Luckee legs

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Everything posted by Luckee legs

  1. Luckee legs
    It's an interesting question. As wild polecats live alone but that's a lot to do with prey availability. In captivity I've always had at least two ferrets and up to 10 and they always find at least one soulmates in a group and benefit from play etc. in the group. Castrated hobs are usually very friendly and the best bet to fit into a group IMO. As you have a Jill another Jill should be OK but just be aware sometimes Jill's don't get on with each other. You should be able to find a young hob but make sure you budget for and act quickly to get him castrated as the Jill will be in seas
  2. Luckee legs
    Hopefully she works out for you. On the timid nature; be prepared to give her time, maybe a lot of time. For example; I have taken in two ferrets this winter (different occasions) the jill is a good worker but even after 3 months with me she has days when she wants to hide in her cage or one of the pipes in the run. The male took 5 weeks before he would come to me to be picked up. the first two weeks I had to force the issue and get him out of his sleeping area.
  3. Luckee legs
    F...k me that is a risk. In the winter we can only canicross them at night and are wearing headlamps. You can only imagine what happens if they notice any eye shine or movement I once, and once only, ran those two on a splitter lead at night. We were with some friends canicrossing and the whole route was off road. It was a horror story for me, getting pulled over, constantly trying to apply the brakes. My muscles were so sore I couldn't run for a week after that
  4. Luckee legs
    Good point. Canicross in my experience makes life difficult as I find they are willing to pull when they fancy. That means you are often correcting them. Now assuming the lead training went well, then that discipline should be instilled in them before they are old enough to even start canicross so they will walk fine in calm situations. Just not so good when walking to a ferreting spot or a field gate when lamping
  5. Luckee legs
    We run ours in canicross harnesses. Once they are a year old they can run 5 km if you have carefully introduced them. We start about 6 months doing maybe 1 km in several short runs. Obviously they are already capable of tearing around off lead at that age and the reason for caution is they will pull hard and give everything if you let them when running or biking. In the photos you can see how hard our whippet pulls and that's on a 10km run in the lakes. To be honest I wouldn't run them on a bike until a year. Stick to running with them
  6. Luckee legs
    All good points above on minimum age, post op gap and trialling hob first. I use a vasectomised hob and typically have five to eight ferrets which are in a group most of the year. The one pain in the arse with v hobs is they behave exactly as fully intact hobs so from late winter to early summer they can be aggressive to castrated hobs. Second pain in the arse is they will lose the urge at some point so it's a treadmill of getting the next done and ready in time. I find it's essential to have an additional cage which separates the v hob. Actually works ok as he can then serve one ji
  7. Luckee legs
    I don't know anyone breeding this cross ATM but I suggest it's worth contacting whippet racing clubs where they race Non ped whippets . They typically have a decent amount of greyhound in them. Most clubs are on FB
  8. Luckee legs
    Sorry to hear this. You clearly gave them the best opportunity. It never fails to amaze me how ferrets are so incredibly tough, recover quickly from bites and abscesses, rarely get ill but on some occasions fade out almost overnight. Best wishes in tracking down a new team Only suggestion I have is a long way for you but I know Essex ferret welfare in Ongar have quite a few at the moment and some are from working lines. You can find them on FB and website
  9. Luckee legs
    You might find pointer crosses in the canicross community. Certainly very popular in European races
  10. Luckee legs
    I have arranged to take a hob to the vet midday today. He started making audible wheezing noises when breathing yesterday and I can feel his chest is struggling. He's split from the other six as he's only been with me 7 days and I try to isolate new ferrets so hopefully he's not passed it onto the others
  11. Luckee legs
    Bird flu is crossing into a range of mammals that's for sure. I read of several zoos where big cats and other mammals have died.
  12. Luckee legs
    Hope the older ferrets survived. On rehydration I just used sachets from the chemist made up in water. Most of them hated it so I had to syringe it into their mouths. One hob loved the blackcurrant flavour and would drink it happily
  13. Luckee legs
    Really sorry to read this.pretty sure there's nothing you could have done. I have only very rarely had unexplained death of a ferret and never a group. You'll probably know they can get a parvovirus "Aleutian disease". That's a potential In over 40 years I've only once had a whole group ill and one of the symptoms was a severe diarrhea, I had to syringe rehydration fluids into their mouths as they were very weak. Another high risk is human flu virus, I recently had a Jill (kept separate as she was not liked by the others ) die in 48 hours in the week I had a flu vaccine, maybe coi
  14. Luckee legs
    Some good advice above and it looks like you've made a good start Definitely the traditional first aid of salt water every day then wound spray. After a few days that needs to stop, assuming it's not infected as the first aid is also killing some of the new tissue I use greyhound specific boots to keep out the mud (the racers use them for corn treatment) which fit much better than standard boots and have the added advantage the dogs hate walking in them so there's less impact. If you can get a cheap standard boot then I'd tape it on So hard to tell from a photo but my gut feelin
  15. Luckee legs
    I imagine it would need to be a very specific role tied to a base and with a marriage partner at home. My friends who've been in the forces all moved several times and all had overseas postings and combat tours. One is a boxer dog fanatic and was keeping three in married quarters, he did five tours in Iraq and Afghan so a lot of stress on the family
  16. Luckee legs
    Thanks for responding, and that's quite pack you have there
  17. Luckee legs
    Great filming techniques and quality. And I've learnt something . I've always preferred albinos as they are easier to see, now 56 years after I got my first ferrets, it turns out I could be tying bright ribbons to their collars . Interested why the dogs need GPS collars when rabbiting? Routine when hunting in NZ or do they wander off?
  18. Luckee legs
    Sorry to read you lost two ferrets
  19. Luckee legs
    Loving the optimism. Agree there was a time prior to RVHD when rabbits had less sensitivity to myxi. They'd often still get it but survive. Let's hope this type of tolerance builds to RVHD Where I am in East Anglia I see a few pockets with reasonable numbers. Although where I have permission, bonanza days are gone and we catch 20% of even five years ago. Interestingly numbers typically build in summer and then catastrophically collapse but with no carcasses seen. Unfortunately some areas like ThetFord forest seem not to show any signs of recovery
  20. Luckee legs
    Good to know as that's less than an hour from me
  21. Luckee legs
    Completely agree, at times I feel I am anthropomorphic about the best old ferrets but when you compare them to young ferrets I see a massive difference. I really trust them to stay down until the job is done and warren clear (most of my hobs will stay while we dig) and then return, or in hedgerows if a rabbits sneaks away I often spot them tracking it on the surface to the next holes
  22. Luckee legs
    That's tricky injury, I've only had to deal with it once and toe needed amputation, in this case the dog recovered well and could still run well, Our local vets are good, independent and I trust them with dogs and ferrets.....but their opinions on lameness is far from mine, unless the dog can hardly walk it's acceptable For orthopedic surgery in East there is the insurance place at Dick whites near Newmarket. Also East of England practice at Wimpole one of the partners lived 2 doors down from me when he trained at Dick White's and seemed a decent guy. And there is Robert m
  23. Luckee legs
    I have two older ferrets that I doubt will survive this winter and I'll miss them when they go. I completely trust these two The hob has outlived his litter brother by 2 years and the Jill a litter sister by 3 years and I find it's incredible that at 7 years old, long long past the typical lifespan of polecats in the wild, and despite their obvious tumours and associated thyroid swelling both those old ferrets are still keen to get out and do their thing very well .
  24. Luckee legs
    Some fair points made. I should add that the although he's apparently made of paper the whippets skin heals incredibly quickly and even the one injury that needed professional stitching, it's barely visible a season on. The niggles from working I've seen over the years in our other lurchers, all primarily greyhound bloodlines, like feet and wrist injuries are much less in comparison
  25. Luckee legs
    These days I just do a bit of ferreting and while our collie x largely avoids trouble apart from the odd foot injury or wire cut , our whippet is always marked after ferreting. Yesterday giving my two oldest ferrets a quick outing, our whippet picked up several nasty cuts on bramble, no wire anywhere. This is not unusual for him as he's very game to the point of reckless / stupidity but it made me think that a working whippet must have scars. and yet at the few shows I go to , most other whippets seem pretty clean. Is my dog just a skin injury magnet or are many working whippets not getting mu
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