Collaring Up?

[squab 2,875]

something i was saying to my lad the other day,first time i got took ferreting,bearing in mind it was 30 odd year ago the bloke that took me never collared up his jills,obviously at this point id never heard of a locator let alone seen one,so after a long lull from bolting rabbits he says she made a kill.

 

ok fair enough so what next,well he opens up another compartment on the carry box and lifts out this stunning silver type thing that was an absolute monster hob,fits it with the collar and puts it to a hole,so in it goes and within a few minutes the jill re appeared and was lifted and boxed up.

 

out came the knocker box found said hob straight in for a dig hob lifted rabbit lifted job done.

 

but why,didn't they used to collar up the jills years ago was it a preferred method to send in a hob to chase the jill off a kill or was he just doing it all wrong? lol

[rabbit demon 302]

Might have only had one collar and the jill would move if he tried digging to it. But honestly i dont know. They used to use the hobs on the line to find kills and lost ferrets. Personally never tried it myself. Everyone does things their own way or the way they were taught to do it. I collar all my ferrets when working. So easy for them to get stuck in a dead end behind a kill.

[bhawk 64]

Me and my mate do this often, only collar the hobs. If a Jill does kill down the hole you enter the hob and hell soon go to the kill at which point we dig and recover the hob and rabbit, the Jill normally gets pushed of the kill or will continue to work or resurface.

[woodman 131]

I truly believe a small meal before taking them helps prevent lay ups (too big a meal and they will just want to sleep).A small meal will not suppress their instinct to hunt.but it is important to give them good food and none better than their natural prey,rabbit.

I have had 2 good liners in my life ( the line having knots tied every foot and mark every five feet in a different colour i.e red,white and blue or any combinations you can remember),one was a ferret the other a polecat.(not that i think it makes any difference as long as they are hobs) who you play with regularly and bond with.with my jills and hobs i have always rattled a stick on the ground when feeding them and if you do that in the hole when they have gone to ground, sometimes their natural inquisitiveness will bring them up.On the other hand if they corner their quarry in a blind seat,use your liner and get to work with the spade.the same if they kill the wrong side in a blind seat ( i can only recall two occasions in over fifty years when the liner pulled the quarry out of the warren,these were both shallow warrens).Unless that is, that you want to wait for them to eat their way through it.i have never used collars except on a liner.I see no reason not to use locators and collars,it is just that i stick to the way i was taught,as it keeps it simpler for me.But perhaps i should embrace technology the same as i have with night vision.We will see.

Edited October 19, 2015 by woodman

[The one 8,456]

At the time your talking about the locator or bleeper was new on the market and would have been expensive too most folk so maybe they just bought one to try them out , there still a lot of money to some folk so they swap the collar over to which ever ferret there going to be working in a burrow

[woodman 131]

How expensive are they?

[woodman 131]

thanks very much.