ratting with ferrets and a net made of stockings

[B.P.R 2,798]

Just reading a book I was given by a member off here : OF PEDIGREE UNKNOWN by Phil Drabble.

 

In it he recalls how when he was younger his main sport was ratting with ferrets. He used to put stocking over the holes and catch the rats in them to sell onto people to train their dogs/pits etc. At escapees used to be caught by his staff x foxhound.

 

He used to lose ferrets through injuries or after so many fights the ferret would refuse to enter so was useless. He stopped the sport as his last 2 Staffordshire bull terriers died of

Jaundice. Anybody heard of this way of ratting with ferrets/nets/ stockings or any cases where the dogs died of jaundice contracted from rats?

[rapidjenky 97]

my dad has always told me how they used to smoke rats with nets made from bean tins with both ends cut off and stockings attached. then the tin shoved into the hole.

 

ide do it myself as he said it was the best way they had ever done it but i dont have much chance of ratting.

[Big bald beautiful 1,231]

Did it yrs ago after reading a plummer book, yes it worked.

[Vosey 24]

we worked rats like this all the time back in the eighties as we only had ferrets. We used football socks taped over tins as rapid described. we never lost dogs to jaundice, but had a ferrets jib after they got smashed by rats in tircky spots.

[B.P.R 2,798]

Posted this in the ferret section too. Got the same replies. Seems more common than I thought.

[GrCh 856]

staff x foxhound sounds an interesting cross, be a good boar dog i bet.

[justdigit 185]

we used to do it alot there easy to get in the stockings but not always easy to get out.

[pernod 466]

 

Hi mate,

 

OF PEDIGREE UNKNOWN thats a blast from the past, i read that from cover to cover when i was at school. I did a lot of ferreting for rats, years ago. Never netted any though just used a beddy/whippet to catch them. I'm not exagerating when i say it was about the best sport i have ever had.I would reccomend it to anyone. And yes it was a bit hard on the ferrets, but some of them got to relish the confict.

 

Pernod

[Big bald beautiful 1,231]

Always wonder why drabble became an anti in his later yrs

[vduben 55]

i bet it made the ferrets nasty didnt it? what did you use? small hobs and jills? cant say id fancy getting one out of a stocking with out stamping on the rat first!

[B.P.R 2,798]

Drabble became an anti?

 

Wasn't the book wrote later on in his life? When did he become an anti?

[nicky25 47]

hi i have had good success with baked bean can with the top and botton cut out of them with a tights on them a old man showed me a few years a go

Edited December 25, 2011 by nicky25

[wirral countryman 2,110]

Veedub,to my knowledge "DRABBLE" was never an anti but a genuine old fashioned countryman that enjoyed nature and its simple pleasures,he loved all forms of hunting and kept many types of dogs,hounds,lurcher's,terriers to name but a few,he made the woods and fields around his house into a nature reserve for birds,deer,in fact all animals,he did not like cruelty in any form and believed in the quick despatch of it when caught,he was a simple man and like Jack hargreaves helped bring some popularity to the sports we all enjoy by using the media to explain them and the shame is most will only remember him for "one man and his dog" fame,there are certainly not enough of his ilk left around today and he certainly knew his dogs,WM

P.S. the jaundice you describe is leptospirosis and your dogs should be jabbed up for it as part of their annual jab.

Edited December 25, 2011 by wirral countryman