New down under ferreting video from New Zealand .

[toolebox 1,527]

https://youtu.be/jkESbqmu-GA

[Luckee legs 464]

Great filming techniques and quality. And I've learnt something .  I've always preferred albinos as they are easier to see, now 56 years after I got my first ferrets, it turns out  I could be tying bright ribbons to their collars .

Interested why the dogs need GPS collars when rabbiting? Routine when hunting in NZ or do they wander off?

[toolebox 1,527]

On 18/11/2024 at 21:56, Luckee legs said:

Great filming techniques and quality. And I've learnt something .  I've always preferred albinos as they are easier to see, now 56 years after I got my first ferrets, it turns out  I could be tying bright ribbons to their collars .

Interested why the dogs need GPS collars when rabbiting? Routine when hunting in NZ or do they wander off?

Those ferrets belong to Billy Barton who understands that keeping control of his ferrets at all times via the bright trap marking tape, the bells and the tracking collar is just added insurance against anyone of them going missing. The tracking collars are in case, one of his dogs tracks off and chases a rabbit back into its warren and the dog won't leave it and continues to dig, at times for hours. Another reason Billy gave me, hacks, back to a time when he still lived in Wales where you didn't let a dog run off unseen because there could be other people nearby, where your dog could disappear in a second just after you hear a van door slam shut. It doesn't bother me at all, because rabbit running/hunting dogs have little value here in New Zealand, but sometimes I wish somebody would steal one of my flea taxing, hole digging, chicken chasing howling at 2am in the morning mutts and excepting that a day later the very same van would be seen in my street dumping said dog out and speeding away quickly. The pure chaos....they dig, scream, and hola at the soil, worry the tree butts and each other, along with the odd dust up ...."get some dogs they said and go catching rabbits it will be a load of fun"...yeap right ......

Edited Tuesday at 19:03 by toolebox

[Luckee legs 464]

Thanks for responding, and that's quite pack you have there 

[toolebox 1,527]

9 hours ago, Luckee legs said:

Thanks for responding, and that's quite pack you have there 

That is only some of them ......It's my personal madness .....

[Aussie Whip 4,091]

It's nice country over your way toolebox, not too hot and no snakes, luxury.

[toolebox 1,527]

Yes this is up in a Otago ,where it is dryer and warmer, down further South where I live we get coast rain all year round so the grass remains green all year around, Otago grass is normally burnt off by Xmas however this year at least  Otago has had a huge amount of rain so it looks a picture . One thing that's interesting is if you travel more than one hour, the country looks so very different. This week I'm heading up to the Otago high country on a station that overlooks the lake, where the county ranges from rolling hills to huge snow covered mountains. It has a good population of both rabbits and fallow deer. On my first visit there, Last week, was to action rabbits living under a building. The manager was at his wits end trying to get rid of them, only accounting for a few smaller ones. The section of 1/4 acer was well rabbit netted, and even the house had rabbit netting run down from the walls onto the ground, but the rabbits living there just dug their way out. He didn't want to poison them to have the rich owners turn up and be unable to stay due to the smell, any way I had a couple of my bigger faster dogs and a couple of ferrets. I set the long net up in a z figuration to stop any rabbits popping out and running  around the building and going back under. Now I didn't know if it would prove to be successful or not, but after an hour we had 7 out of the net with a ferret away killing younger rabbits for an hour.I watched the manager come over later to see how we had gone, and he couldn't hide his smile, "you bloody beauty" he said. We had a yarn up about what I would need to do to remove the rabbits left, another couple of visits would remove any doubt, this was important as he wanted to replace the plants the rabbits had left as bare dead sticks.

It's a given that I could have sent him a bill, but I had thought I'd like to camp and hunt there, so I asked if we come to arrangement, I'd remove the rabbits and any that moved in if I was able to camp up trap, shoot and snare a few rabbits and shoot a couple of fellow deer, he looked at me for a second, sizing me up and replied on the one condition you have to shoot more than a couple, we have too many living here, and they are eating too much grass, it was then my turn to smile. He also mentioned a track that goes up and around the side of the mountain then down the other side to a high country lake full of smaller brown trout, watch this post for updated pictures of my new playground, adventures have far more value for me now, than five pieces of sliver.