ferret accidents

[Moses]

anyone ever got their ferret eaten by their hawk in anger or frustration or maybe one day the hawk decided hey i will have a chunk of it

[ColdZero]

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[Shaun Byrne]

Get your bird used to everything it is going to encounter in the field BEFORE you start hunting. Your ferret should be in view of the bird at all times and remember to skin rats before you give them to your bird or it may mistake your ferret for one.

[Moses]

Get your bird used to everything it is going to encounter in the field BEFORE you start hunting. Your ferret should be in view of the bird at all times and remember to skin rats before you give them to your bird or it may mistake your ferret for one.

nice on hawka

coldzero my mate steves ferrets are right across from his hawks and they see each other all the time and also he got them used to each other since they were young as well but not too close u know what i mean

i know some folk use white ones and get their harris hawks used to them and they can differentiate between them and the rabbits colour

but steven himself uses brown coloured ferrets and doesnt have probs

i heard 2 mates were hunting once and the other guys harris wasnt used to ferrets and he made a mistake of not telling his mate and well it swooped down and killed his ferret


if your harris see';s u everyday handling the ferret that would help too and maybe take it a lil closer so the harris see's and knows its not its prey while its tethered .

but i also hear the ferrets can kill tethered hawks too hmm one to watch specially if it escapes

[Moses]

one more thing when taming a ferret , what is their bite like, is it worse than a cats and is it quite sore , im sure it is, they can kill a rabbit can they not :D while their in the burrow and come out all red

[ColdZero]

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[GDN]

My hunting bird sits and looks at the hutch my ferrets are kept in all day every day and doesn't seem interested in them when i let the out the hutch. She just sits there watching them. Doesn't move.

I never feed her rats. Just feel they look a little bit too much like a ferrets.

I have never had a problem of HH a going for a ferret

[Jiff]

when i started out last year,i knew there would be a problem hunting with ferrets and a harris, although my ferrets are in full view of my bird i still did some socialising,i would have my bird on the fist pulling at a tireing of some sort and then i would approach the hutch,naturaly the ferrets rush to the front to see whats going on,again naturaly the bird lifts her wings and calls out a warning,i would spend a few minutes just sitting there,after a few days of this twice a day things settled down,when it came to hunting,bareing in mind i'm usualy alone,again i could forsee problems, at first i started with the bird on the fist (jesses tight in the hand) i would take a ferret from the box, again the birds wings would be raised in anger, i then enter the ferret in full view of the bird,luckily for me i have alot of rabbits, so it wasnt long before i got a bolt and the hunt was on,in the first few outings she missed alot,this is the sticky part she would then take stand in a tree or hedge row with the ferret still bellow ground, it's important to use the smaller sets so you won't be far off the emerging ferret,once the ferret shows pick him up and watch for the birds reaction,again luckily for me there was hardly any,after a couple of outings i could safely cast sky off and enter two ferrets let them do as they wished without a worry of them being nailed,once she realised what the ferrets actualy did she soon accepted theire presence in the team, but as with all success in falconry i do believe it's exposure to game that overcomes most field problems,the more rabbits the ferrets produce the more they're accepted by the bird as part of the team.
as for ferret bites, you aint been bit till you been bit by a ferret,it's very important to get you're ferret silly tame before you hunt with it,and don't believe for one minute that if you're ferret is as soft as a kitten when handled then it won't hunt,thats rubbish,years ago there used to be a school of thought that ferrets had to be vicious to be good hunters again rubbish my ferrets are as playfull as anything and if i have to dig in and find one of them in a tussle with a rabbit i can reach in and pick him out without any sort of adverse reaction from him,that is the aim, cos believe me you don't want to be bit by an angry ferret.

[Ben C]

Nothing to add to that jiff.

[Moses]

when i started out last year,i knew there would be a problem hunting with ferrets and a harris, although my ferrets are in full view of my bird i still did some socialising,i would have my bird on the fist pulling at a tireing of some sort and then i would approach the hutch,naturaly the ferrets rush to the front to see whats going on,again naturaly the bird lifts her wings and calls out a warning,i would spend a few minutes just sitting there,after a few days of this twice a day things settled down,when it came to hunting,bareing in mind i'm usualy alone,again i could forsee problems, at first i started with the bird on the fist (jesses tight in the hand) i would take a ferret from the box, again the birds wings would be raised in anger, i then enter the ferret in full view of the bird,luckily for me i have alot of rabbits, so it wasnt long before i got a bolt and the hunt was on,in the first few outings she missed alot,this is the sticky part she would then take stand in a tree or hedge row with the ferret still bellow ground, it's important to use the smaller sets so you won't be far off the emerging ferret,once the ferret shows pick him up and watch for the birds reaction,again luckily for me there was hardly any,after a couple of outings i could safely cast sky off and enter two ferrets let them do as they wished without a worry of them being nailed,once she realised what the ferrets actualy did she soon accepted theire presence in the team, but as with all success in falconry i do believe it's exposure to game that overcomes most field problems,the more rabbits the ferrets produce the more they're accepted by the bird as part of the team.
as for ferret bites, you aint been bit till you been bit by a ferret,it's very important to get you're ferret silly tame before you hunt with it,and don't believe for one minute that if you're ferret is as soft as a kitten when handled then it won't hunt,thats rubbish,years ago there used to be a school of thought that ferrets had to be vicious to be good hunters again rubbish my ferrets are as playfull as anything and if i have to dig in and find one of them in a tussle with a rabbit i can reach in and pick him out without any sort of adverse reaction from him,that is the aim, cos believe me you don't want to be bit by an angry ferret.


well said mate, i once read in the shooting mag they had a special review on hunting with hawks and also ferreting and its amazing how the ferret went in the burrow chased a few out but stayed in and came out all red, it has to have alot of aggression and bite to kill a rabbit double the size of it

some stuff that

[Kevin Massey]

it dont take long either until your harris cottons onto the fact that when the ferret goes in ...it aint ling till rabbits bolt out !!! i make it a habbit to show the harris the ferret going in..

kev

[Jiff]

mass you would be amazed at the balls of a ferret they won't back down to anything, death or glory boy's they are mate,no matter how tame,if they come up against anything with attitude theres only one winner, in the past i've bolted huge rats, fox's and ferral cats with ferrets the fox's and cats un-intentialy but i used to make a few quid as a boy, rat catching on local farms with ferrets.

[Bill]

Your hawk may be ok with a visible ferret but if it comes out of an overgrown hole and is just a rusle and movement in the grass it may get nailed. As for bites - take the above scenario which happened to me - luckily got the hawk of quite easily but was left with an angry ferret attached to my hand. Tried to squeeze its jaws open(finger and thumb pincer movement) and to prove its point all I saw was the ferrets jaws clamoing on a bit harder. Yes it hurts. The other side of that was that I had an excited hawk that had been deprived of it's catch and she would have had it again if she could.

It's always recomended to fly off the fist and only once the rabbit is ID'd and bolting.

[Coedhirion]

Jiff got it all about correct. The only other thing I do, is NEVER let my birds see me feed the ferrets, or the ferrets eating. They cannot then get the idea that a ferret is robbing them of food. The ferret is just a provider of quarry the same as the dogs and me.
As for ferret bites!! they can happen with a well handled ferret if it becomes frightened, it hurts like hell, never try to pull away, the jaws just lock tighter. All you can do is try to prise them apart without hurting it and wait for it to calm down, it is possible to swap a bit of you for a bit of chick if the animal is hungry enough and you take care it dosent just latch on to the other hand instead :lol: :lol: but make sure you haven't got a bird around at the time or your in even bigger trouble :lol: :roll:

[Jiff]

i couldnt imagine a more serious situation than that of an angry ferret fang deep in one hand and a bird looking for an advantage on the other, doesnt bare thinking about, i must say tho (touch wood) i never had a single problem last season in fact it whent great,some people said it couldnt be done single handedly, ferrets and hawking, well this year i'll add a dog to the situation, should make for some interesting reading. :lol: