hideandshoot

Hi All, I'm part of a small DIY shoot, and like many shoots we normally release 2 or 3 white pheasants with a £50 penalty charge for onyone who accidentially shoots one. This seems a waste of perfectly good birds especially as we only release 300-400, and no one has shot a white bird for several years now. In fact the last one which ended up in the bag was pegged by a spanniel. I'm thinking of making this a little more interesting this season which made me vaguely recall a 'Reader's Letter' in Shooting Times a number of years ago, whereby a Reader shared the rules of his syndicate. I

Hi All, Does anyone have a vasectomised hob they no longer require. Happy to pay a fair price (depending on age). I'm near Colne in Lancashire, but willing to travel up to an hour or so by car. Alternatively, does anyone have one I could borrow to knock my two jills out of season. Again, happy to pay for the service. I would also give you a deposit as security. I've also got a spare polecat jill (born last year) if anyone wants it.

Vasectomised Hob Wanted (near Colne, Lancashire) View Advert Hi All, Does anyone have a vasectomised hob they no longer require. Happy to pay a fair price (depending on age). I'm near Colne in Lancashire, but willing to travel up to an hour by car. Alternatively, does anyone have one I could use to knock my jills out of season when the time arises. Again, happy to pay for the service. Advertiser hideandshoot Date 17/03/19 Price

Hi All, Does anyone have a vasectomised hob they no longer require. Happy to pay a fair price (depending on age). I'm near Colne in Lancashire, but willing to travel up to an hour by car. Alternatively, does anyone have one I could use to knock my jills out of season when the time arises. Again, happy to pay for the service.

Put a small handfull of sand in your water bottles and shake them for a few seconds - hey presto, algae gone.

I had five kits from one of my jills this summer. I had to knock one on the head because its back legs had gone. They all looked OK when they first started venturing from the nest box, but I soon realised one of them had a dickie back end. A mate of mine had a whole litter like this 15 years ago. I thought it may have been some kind of deficiency.

I always understood a greyhound ferret to be a small, sleek, type - usually albinos. I once had a ferret, back in the early 1980's, which I understood to be a greyhound type, it was very small and thin, but a great little worker. It was so small I called it Mouse. It rarely killed below ground as it always seemed to push the bunnies out, probably too small to hold them down (although stoats seem to manage). Ideal for the small burrows (1-8 holes) typical of east Lancashire in the days when ferret finders were an unaffordable school boy's dream. I always though the term 'greyhound' was misle

You can buy un-perforated land drainage pipe which is better as you don't get daylight entering through the drainage slits. Black is also best colour as the white and yellow pipes let some daylight through - I guess you want it as realistic (in a light sense) as a rabbit burrow. 100mm (4") diameter is fine, but don't go any smaller. You can buy it online at https://www.draindepot.co.uk/100mm-x-25m-unperforated-land-drain-coil.html You'll also pick the perforated variety up at most agricultural stores and builder's merchants. Most farms and building sites also have part rolls kicking about

Great advice guys. I feel more confident now keeping them all together, which is what I preferred to do anyway. I've already got two nest boxes in the cage so that may reduce any potential stress between the jills. Tsteve999 - I assume the 20 kits you mentioned was the result of multiple litters and not just from a single jill? The most I've witnessed was 14 kits in one litter, but my personal best is only 9. I guess I'd prefer half a dozen strong kits than a large litter which the jill may struggle to adequately nourish. I'll offer any surplus kits on here FOC, so long as any takers don

I have two jills (sisters) which are housed together in a large cage, and they have not been separated since they were born 3 years ago. I would like to breed from one of them, but not both as I only have homes for 3-4 kits. I only have the one cage which is a large two-storey affair, so I guess I could simply block-off the chute which connects the two levels and add a sleeping box to the lower level, effectively making it in to 2 cages. Is this really necessary though? I'm wondering if the jill which isn't mated will become a kind of foster mother if they are put back together after matin

I've harvested barley also, and shovelled tonnes of the stuff by hand, and you're right, barley grain does make you itch. I guess it has something to do with the summer heat and perspiration as well. However, barley straw doesn't make me itch, and it's relatively dust free. I've even slept in straw-filled barns - when I was younger - without itching, and most people have sat on barley straw bales at some time or other without itching (country shows, pigeon hides etc.). I've shaken-out 1000's of bales of barley straw when bedding down livestock pens and never had a problem with itching. It

I've always used straw (on its own) as bedding, and never had a problem. Straw is fairly inert, therefore shouldn't harbour any pests/mites. I use barley straw as it's softer and more comfortable than wheat straw. Don't buy it from a pet shop, get it from an agricultural store or from a livestock feed supplier. A full bale is less than a fiver. Hay is too dusty and does harbour mites. Shredded paper is also quite dusty and it makes your cage look like a rubbish tip. Course sawdust (NOT the fine dusty stuff) is best for the toilet end of the cage as it's very absorbent. Sorry for harping on abo

Not really relevant, but one of my ewes had dead triplet lambs this spring. The first one was massive, which the vet managed to eventually pull out backwards, the other two were normal size. Unfortunately all dead. It appears the ewe couldn't part with the larger first lamb and they subsequently all died due to being blocked in for too long. Maybe the same thing happened with your litter. I suppose it could be due to being overfed as the extra size of the first one had to ultimately come from the mothers diet.

Hi Liam6, Hope I didn't get your hopes up. I spoke with a bloke I know to see if he had any spare jills, but unfortunately he's had three ferrets die over the last 6 months. This has left him rather short of ferrets for himself. Good luck in finding something decent.

Sorry to hear your unfortunate news. I've worked in agriculture for a number of years, mainly livestock farming, and it's usually young, inexperienced mothers that lose their offspring or have problems giving birth. I doubt very much if the bedding was a major factor, although giving birth in a pile of dusty wood shavings doesn't sound like much fun. Just as an extra point, hay is also very dusty, so I always use straw. It's clean, relatively dust free, and doesn't attract mites etc. That's why all livestock farmers use it for bedding. It's also cheap if you buy a bale at a time, or free