Goodbye to Hounds

I never minded hunting until I came to an area where it was literally everywhere with no respect for the general public in any way. Time after time I see fb posts of hounds on the wrong land, out of control. We cannot hack at all 2 days a week from late autumn to spring - they won’t let you know when they will be in the area, they don’t tell you when they decide to change their weekday meet days and they frankly don’t care about anyone other than themselves. Even the off road bikers are more considerate of others!
 
Irish-Only said:
Maybe those that are in favour of trail and drag hunting aren't commenting on this thread? I haven't because it's clear that that a number of the contributors have made their minds up regardless of any evidence to the contrary. Lots of very offensive comments about the hunting community. Interestingly I subscribed to H&H magazine for in excess of 30 years but cancelled it when I worked out it took me less than 20 minutes to read it.

Sabs are regularly disrupting legal trail laid hunting days, and being removed eventually by police, but not always. There was a video a couple of weeks ago where the huntsman challenged a sab about what he was doing, and the sab admitted on camera that he had seen them laying the trail.

Goodness. What determines respectful looking? And my horse(s) are absolutely happy when out hunting, ears forward, listening to hounds, and one I had equated the sound of the quad (trail layer) to lots of fun.

Now there will be a barrage of replies telling me exactly why I am wrong.
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The problem is evidence to the contrary means nothing now when hunts like the Warwickshire carry on like they do.

The time for this evidence was about 5yrs ago which is when every hunt abiding by the law should have been coming out insisting law breaking hunts stop immediately and disband. They could have given this evidence to the general public, while making it super clear they were absolutely against the behaviour of the bad hunts. Nothing of the sort happened and its meant everyone is tarred with the same brush and now its too late.
 
Shantara said:
Secure your property better then 🤷‍♀️ neither foxes nor hens deserve to die due to improper housing. I wouldn't have a simple wooden fence around my horse if we had lions.
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It's legal to shoot foxes and all my neighbours do, works for me & my hens, they have a happy life scratching around, eating what they find and dust bathing in the school and why shouldn't they?
 
Why shouldn't foxes have a happy life eating hens they find?

I mean, personally I'd just secure my hens and leave the foxes to do whatever they choose, but this is such a weird argument. Why would hens have a right to a happy life, but foxes don't? Or is it just because you will it - which feels a lot like hubris to me.
 
Legal or not, predators deserve to be happy and a chance at life too. Plus, shooting foxes does nothing to the population. It just encourages foxes to take the territory. There aren't really that many foxes in the UK, so surely if shooting them worked, you wouldn't have to keep shooting.
Secure your animals properly and you won't have a problem.
 
marmalade76 said:
It's legal to shoot foxes and all my neighbours do, works for me & my hens, they have a happy life scratching around, eating what they find and dust bathing in the school and why shouldn't they?
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Well, they aren't a native species fending for themselves in a pretty hostile environment tbh (I have chickens too). I don't want foxes controlled for the sake of what is only a hobby to me.
 
My hens free range but I do have electric fence. I quite like seeing foxes about… but hypocritically not on my land.
I don’t lose sleep over orphaned cubs or baby rats.
 
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Rats absolutely deserve to live and be happy too. Why are you bringing rats up?

You're more likely to see foxes in towns as their territory is smaller due to the amount of rubbish left by humans - more to eat. A towns fox's territory can be as small as 0.5 square km, in the country it can be as large as 20km.
There is thought to be around 280 000 foxes before breeding and 480 000 when cubs are born. They're not endangered, but they don't breed out of control like cats for example. They aren't the most numerous animal we have. There are 13.5 million dogs.
(as a side note - we throw away around 86 million chickens each year, which means we could give each fox in this country roughly half a chicken every day).
 
marmalade76 said:
hope you all feel the same about rats too.
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Actually I love rats (not the fact that they can spread disease, but the animals themselves). They are hugely resourceful and intelligent. We admire these qualities in ourselves. The best way to keep on top of their numbers is cleanliness. We switched to a good treadle feeder last year and have seen a big drop in numbers.
 
teapot said:
Pest control is needed though in this country - sure some of you will have noticed the vastly increased herds of deer because they're not being properly managed.
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I'm not against population management where it's necessary - but that's based on reasonable ecological arguments, not spurious ideas about a hierarchy of species based on personal whims.
 
Clodagh said:
My hens free range but I do have electric fence. I quite like seeing foxes about… but hypocritically not on my land.
I don’t lose sleep over orphaned cubs or baby rats.
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That is hypocritical. Where are they supposed to go? Have you taken measures so they can't get on your land? How are they supposed to know otherwise?
Maybe you should try having a little empathy.
 
Shantara said:
That is hypocritical. Where are they supposed to go? Have you taken measures so they can't get on your land? How are they supposed to know otherwise?
Maybe you should try having a little empathy.
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I don’t shoot or hunt foxes where we live now, we’ve no need. I electric fence them away from my hens.
I don’t poison the rats, we have owls. I keep my chicken food shut away from them.
I still accept wild animals get orphaned. Didn’t say I did it.
 
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