Hunting Rabbits With Ferrets

[Jamie m 668]

Get a few take them tip em out on the warren which ever do the do , do the do , did you have a look on you tube ??? Just type in ferreting on the search ,

[johnny boy68 11,726]

As somebody else said I'm almost sure its illegal to use ferrets for hunting in the U.S.

[R.A.W 1,987]

if you train a beagle the right way they wont hunt deer............cotton tales spend most of there time above ground don't they?

[Guest norseman]

I think its illegal to even own ferrets in some states. crazy!

[MAAA 1]

As some of you suggested, " you tube" is worth a thousand words. I tried to pull up ferreting and look on you tube the other night after rob19064 had reccomended it to me but the videos that i selected would not open up for me. So i done it again this evening and i did get a couple to open. And it was very interesting. I had never heard or seen anything like that before. I did some research as to the legality of ferreting here in the U. S. and did not find anything saying it was illegal nor anything saying it was legal either. So i called the local game & fish department this afternoon and talked with a wild life game biologist who had never heard of useing ferrets to hunt rabbits with his self and he got quite a laugh out of it. So he referred me to another department to call but they had already closed for today so i will try again tommorrow.

 

I was surpprised at all of the rabbits that would come out of just one burrow on the you tube video. And at the rabbits that was lingering in the back ground. The only place that remotely ressembled that here in the U. S. that i know of would be in the San Louis Valley in Colorado. And the majority of the rabbits in the video were really big in size. We have and i am sure you probably do there to have what we call swamp rabbits that grow in size 2 to almost 3 times the size of a regular cotton tail rabbit but that are usually found arround lakes and swamps.

 

I am not sure all of the rabbits here live in burrows due to our climate in this part of the U. S. I have more than once over the years found new born rabbits in grass nest above ground while brushing hogging or cutting hay with my tractor. But i have found alot of burrows along creek & river banks that i think are rabbit burrows. I think what i am calling a burrow is the same thing as what you referr to as a warren ? I think they are both rabbit dens that the rabbits live in underground ?

 

Thank you again for all of your help. If it does turn out to be legal here in the U. S. I plan on giving it a try this fall. I do have another question if someone would not ming helping me out on i would be gratefull. The nets that i saw in the video looked to be store bought, are they availible to buy at a store somewhere ?

[GreyRake 108]

Tricky question, some of the guys might disagree with me on this one but I've found some ferrets quite useless in the past. One wouldn't go down a hole and would just run around on the surface. When shown a rabbit my working ferrets would be hanging off it in a second and she would have a sniff then go off and do her own thing. So I'd say not all ferrets work... well. You might have more trouble finding a good worker over there as I believe most ferrets are bred for pet lives only?

[rob190364 2,594]

I have the perfect solution.....me and you will do a life swap, you come over here and do all the ferreting you want....I'll go over there and hunt some of the quarry you're allowed to hunt!!!! deal?

[The one 8,482]

As said i thought it was ileagal to own ferrets in some states and in the ones that allowed you they had to be descent-ed. And what about poison's snakes , stuff putting your hand in a burrow

[MAAA 1]

rob190364 that sounds like a bargin to me !!! When do you want to trade ?!!!! The one, poison snakes and other things are something that i will keep in mind if i do get to give this a try. Which i think might be a possibility. I finally got an answer from the Arkansas game & fish today and they said yes i could use ferrets to hunt rabbits this fall. They sort of laughed about it at first which everyone that i have mentioned it to has simply because it is a new concept to them. People do pratice the sport of falcontry here but not that many that i am a ware of.

 

I don't know just how well ferreting will work here where i am at because the rabbits dont necessarily have to rely on burrows for shelter. When i use to hunt rabbits with beagles there were areas that we did not like to hunt because the rabbits would run into a burrow thus ending the race. That area was along a slough which had sandy banks and it ran along the edge of soybean fields. But like " The one" mentioned there are alot of posionous snakes along these slou's which are the cotton mought water mocosian and the copper head. Then there are alot of fur bering animals that might use these burrows which are red/grey fox, opposums, muskrats, racoons, mink, beaver, river otters. But i think i can tell by looking which burrows might be used by rabbits.

 

GreyRake I bet you are right and i know that all of the ferrets here are bred for pets only. If i am not mistaken all ferrets sold here have to be spade/neutered before they can be sold. From what i read about ferrets they started selling them here in the U. S. in 1980 at pet stores and they were sort of a novelty and were pretty exspensive to buy when they first started selling them here. But as more of them were sold and alot of owners decided that ferrets were not the type of pets they thought they were. You could buy some ferrets for little of nothing. A few years ago my wife had one give to her. It was something new to use and was an interesting pet at first. But like someone else here has mentioned ferrets has an odor to them and this one had been descented but still had a odor to it. So we gave it away our self. What little time we had it. It was constantly escapeing from its pet taxi and it would sometimes be days before we would find it running loose in the house. The wife almost run it through the washing machine a time or two. It was good about getting into the dirty laundry basket to nap.

 

The next time i am near a pet store i am going to ask them if it is law that ferrets brought into the U. S. have to be spade/neutered. Are good working ferrets hard to find in your part of the world ? How much does a good working ferret cost ?

[Guest norseman]

let us know how you get on anyway, the ferret doesn't have to be from "working" strain. ferrets are still natural hunters at the end of the day. only way to know is to get one and see if instinct will take over have fun.

[Jamie m 668]

rob190364 that sounds like a bargin to me !!! When do you want to trade ?!!!! The one, poison snakes and other things are something that i will keep in mind if i do get to give this a try. Which i think might be a possibility. I finally got an answer from the Arkansas game & fish today and they said yes i could use ferrets to hunt rabbits this fall. They sort of laughed about it at first which everyone that i have mentioned it to has simply because it is a new concept to them. People do pratice the sport of falcontry here but not that many that i am a ware of.

 

I don't know just how well ferreting will work here where i am at because the rabbits dont necessarily have to rely on burrows for shelter. When i use to hunt rabbits with beagles there were areas that we did not like to hunt because the rabbits would run into a burrow thus ending the race. That area was along a slough which had sandy banks and it ran along the edge of soybean fields. But like " The one" mentioned there are alot of posionous snakes along these slou's which are the cotton mought water mocosian and the copper head. Then there are alot of fur bering animals that might use these burrows which are red/grey fox, opposums, muskrats, racoons, mink, beaver, river otters. But i think i can tell by looking which burrows might be used by rabbits.

 

GreyRake I bet you are right and i know that all of the ferrets here are bred for pets only. If i am not mistaken all ferrets sold here have to be spade/neutered before they can be sold. From what i read about ferrets they started selling them here in the U. S. in 1980 at pet stores and they were sort of a novelty and were pretty exspensive to buy when they first started selling them here. But as more of them were sold and alot of owners decided that ferrets were not the type of pets they thought they were. You could buy some ferrets for little of nothing. A few years ago my wife had one give to her. It was something new to use and was an interesting pet at first. But like someone else here has mentioned ferrets has an odor to them and this one had been descented but still had a odor to it. So we gave it away our self. What little time we had it. It was constantly escapeing from its pet taxi and it would sometimes be days before we would find it running loose in the house. The wife almost run it through the washing machine a time or two. It was good about getting into the dirty laundry basket to nap.

 

The next time i am near a pet store i am going to ask them if it is law that ferrets brought into the U. S. have to be spade/neutered. Are good working ferrets hard to find in your part of the world ? How much does a good working ferret cost ?

Stick some pictures up of your burrows we soon tell you if your onto a winner .

[GreyRake 108]

Might tie in with what you were saying about ferrets turning out not to be the pets people had hoped. I'm sure I read the US ferret farms were then selectively breeding the 'friendlier' ferrets to be more suited to pet life. With no intention to breed good working ferrets, the killer instincts may have been reduced with it. But at the end of the day, if it goes down the holes, many rabbits will bolt just due to the fact a predator is there.

 

A working ferret over here can cost as little as nothing, they are abundant. I wouldn't consider going down the importing route though, if that's what you ment, the whole quarantine thing (if it's the same going your way) would put me off. I wouldn't know about compulsory neutering in the US, but I'd doubt it, although as the guys have said there is many state laws.

 

I did come across a UK site that had X amount of ferret orders and they were asking for more orders to make shipping them over to the US worthwhile.

Edited July 5, 2013 by GreyRake

[MAAA 1]

No i was not thinking about importing any ferrets. I don't even know if ferreting will work out that well here due to the difference in their need for burrow as compared to your part of the country. I don't know what the terran is like where alot of people in your area hunt rabbits is like nor how cold it gets in the winter there but it may be a little more harsh than here.

 

I have seen several burrows while out hunting but nothing like what i saw in the you tube video's. So i am not sure how well it will work out here because i am guessing a big percentage of the rabbits here don't use burrows maybe because of there being so much cover in general for them to nest in & use for shelter. I would post pictures to show you what i am talking about but i don't know how to post pictures. I am just not that computer litterate

 

There are alot of ferrets for sale here some that people are just wanting to give away. So I will try and pick one cheap and see what happens this fall. The game and fish said i will have to abide buy the hunting regulations that applys to the normal rabbit season.