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OldTrapCollector

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Everything posted by OldTrapCollector

  1. OldTrapCollector
    Those brands also get my vote , but I have also found Scarpa boots to be good. Wellies last me weeks, decent boots last me years. OTC
  2. OldTrapCollector
    Ooooops!!! One thing I did with my Larsen Traps was to paint them matt black - they then turn invisible. I'm not sure if it helped with catching the crows and magpies but it saved the 'two legged' foxes making a nuisance with them. OTC
  3. OldTrapCollector
    Ferrets are first rate carnivores and need the red flesh diet to thrive, whilst they will eat other things (bread and milk) then it will not agree with their digestion (proof in the latrine corner) but they will eat it. I would think that the same goes for fruit or veg. OTC
  4. OldTrapCollector
    I had two brother hobs in together for the dozen years they were alive and they were a bit rough with each other in the early spring but generally not a problem, but I have had hobs who would quickly worry and maul annother lesser male to death in a short space of time. Really they should be seperated from others or if they are in a ferret court as I have seen some of you use, make a few boxes with pop holes too small for him to get in so the jills can sneak away for a rest . . . OTC
  5. OldTrapCollector
    I have always used quality white shavings throughout the entire hutch, with a generous handful of clean wheat straw in the bedding compartment. I have used shredded paper and hay but find that straw seems to work best - they can make a good nest in it. I would be wary of using long strangling lengths of shredded paper or hay in with a jill about to have a litter of kits too for obvious reasons. OTC
  6. OldTrapCollector
    I do not know of any historical reference to british trapping of hares, or of any traps made or set to do so. I should imagine that the highly respected 'beast of the course' was given an unwritten law to protect it, as much by respect as anything else. Whilst Harry Carne's trap is sometimes known as the 'hare trap' I doubt very much if it was ever engineered to be used for that purpose - its patent repeatedly refers to the intended captive as 'rabbit' and never anything else. Plenty has been written on snaring or netting them, but I have to agree with Ditch that a live trapped hare would
  7. OldTrapCollector
    Most of the job lots of 'Fenn' traps you see on the Bay are not actually made by Fenn and are just cheap Chinese made copies (reflected in the price) Speak to moley - he'll sort you out with the real deal OTC
  8. OldTrapCollector
    Most of the job lots of 'Fenn' traps you see on the Bay are not actually made by Fenn and are just cheap Chinese made copies (reflected in the price) Speak to moley - he'll sort you out with the real deal OTC
  9. OldTrapCollector
    I certainly am Ditch, the research is still very actively ongoing but it shouldn't be long now - once I have everything I want/need it will be in the shops but therein lies the problem with historical research - most of those answers lie dead and buried with the blokes who made them! If anyone has any old paperwork regarding traps or their makers, or any old traps themselves I would just love to see them - they are all pieces of a giant and ancient jigsaw for me. I know you'd probably not want to part with such stuff but a copy or electronic scan of the information would be great for me.
  10. OldTrapCollector
    the trap in the picture, whats it called? i have some of those, It's a gin trap, they were made in their thousands in the first half of the last century but now illegal to use. It's what I collect - if anyone has any old ones knocking about they don't want I would be interested in hearing from you OTC
  11. OldTrapCollector
    Historically I believe that lads used to buy live rats from the ratcatcher to try their dogs on, and also have a competition on killing rats dog vs dog. OTC
  12. OldTrapCollector
    Nobody else has been there before have they? Other than that maybe a stoat or mink might have been through the bury and pushed them out. OTC
  13. OldTrapCollector
    Doing the family thing and then just collecting old traps for me, I love doing the car boot sale thing on a Sunday morning too - you never know quite what you will find! OTC
  14. OldTrapCollector
    I have seen plenty of young rabbits about in the hedgerows as have most of you guys but I did see something today that made me stop and think - I saw a mallard duck with 8 two or three day old ducklings in tow, skimming the few and far between flies off the surface of the River Usk in Powys. This means that she must have been sitting tight on her clutch though the dump of 12" snow we had last week I wonder if they will survive the cold weather and lack of insects at this time of year as they were in a particularly remote spot and not likely to be topped up by the bread throwing briga
  15. OldTrapCollector
    40 Gypsies died and went to heaven. They turned up at the Pearly Gates and asked St Peter to let them in. He said that they didn't have room for all 40 of them. He only had room for 5, so they should go away and think about who would come in. A short while later St Peter went to see God and said "They've gone!" God replied, "What, the Pikeys"? "No" said St Peter, "the f**king gates"!!!!
  16. OldTrapCollector
    i used smocked mackerel if thats any help Kippers, kippers, kippers . . . stop prolonging the inevitable Ditch, you know you want to try them OTC
  17. OldTrapCollector
    I have never had much success myself with a wooden box trap for foxes but they are used a lot on the continent. I would be very interested to hear how you get on with it though. There are a few threads running about baits and sites for cage traps for foxes - they would be transferrable to your project, I am sure. One thing I would like to ask, though, is what you intend to do with the captive once you have caught it - I mean remove or dispatch in the trap, and how? OTC
  18. OldTrapCollector
    Shawshank Redemption, Saw and . . . I'm not too sure about a third. There's so many OTC
  19. OldTrapCollector
    I have used 'green' sweet chestnut pegs with a crook at one end and a point at the other - they are very resilient to hammering and don't very often split - cut them from the bigger 'suckers' at the base of the tree. Split ash makes good snare pegs but it will be difficult to split the length that you need to hold in soft ground. I have used angle iron as I said above but it would be a last resort as a canny fox will steer clear of the smell of too much iron in a wild setting. A heavy and 'immovable' object might be another possible anchor if charlie pulls out the pegs described above - a
  20. OldTrapCollector
    On soft ground I have used a 15" wooden or angle peg, but with the wire attached about 5 inches from the point not at the top of it. It saves the fox pumping the stake to get it to draw out. Maybe it will work for your ground - a little longer perhaps if it is really wet and loose. OTC
  21. OldTrapCollector
    Unbelieveable stuff Ditch. That sure beats the hell out of me why he won't go in there . . . The only other thing I can think of would be to cover the trap a little in vegetation so he thinks of it more as a tunnel and not as an obstacle. OTC
  22. OldTrapCollector
    I also have only heard of a handful of these traps around the world, but as a fanatical vintage trap collector I also have no real desire to own one above many of the other early types. Like many other patented engines for trapping rabbits that were made in great amounts at the turn of the century, by public admission by one of the main manufacturers, they were a 'white elephant'. Their cheap production line construction and fallible 'modus operandum' equated to one simple result - they were a piece of overated junk! Why else would they be so scarce? I have a couple of pics somewhere in my
  23. OldTrapCollector
    An interesting thread. Once I have finished my work contract in a few years I will be packing my family, belongings and traps up and heading straight out to NZ. The grass maybe greener and all that but soon there will be no grass at all left here in Britain, metaphorically speaking. OTC
  24. OldTrapCollector
    Why do some ferreters see digging as being the inevitable option? I used Deben Mk I FF's from they day they were first released, and a 'radio ferret' before that but I have to say it was always a last resort. Prime rabbits freely bolting into purse nets is part nature part engineering. Your ferrets, when properly fed and fit for work will follow their musteline habits of exploring any dark hole to find whatever is in there, rabbits will try to escape as best they can to avoid the inevitable - that's nature. If you stomp around on top of the bury, smoking and talking then Brer rabbit wil be rel
  25. OldTrapCollector
    Me too Ditch - a mink will go into anything, he's not afraid of where he puts his feet (unlike cats and rats). I can see me getting a small tuppaware tub and sending you some kippers soon to use as bait . . . OTC
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