hedgehogs will be extinct by 2025

[gozzer]

I believe the 'packing them in clay' bit is a myth, but yes, people do eat them.

 

Anyone remember the 'hedgehog crisps' that were brought out about 20 years ago?

 

Yes I was just thinking of them but I can't remember what they tasted of ...hedgehog I suppose but never had any to compare them with.

[Zigs]

i liked hedgehog crisps, every packet bought gave a donation to a hedgehog sanctuary, i think it was st. ziggywinkles or something like that

 

i actually phoned up the manufacturers to ask if all the range was veggie (days before the suitable for vegetarians lables) and was assured no meat products went into the flavours.

 

i guess EEC regulations stopped them from selling the hedgehog flavour, are they still producing other flavours in the hedgehog range ?

[Zigs]

Slug pellets are one of the hedgehogs biggest enemies, that stuff is a killer and should be banned!

 

cant use slug pellets with eric the chicken about, but i think eric will probably see off hedgehogs too

have seen her having a go at the local cats

[Guest tigger]

i have had a little to say about cats on a previous thread...

 

 

Full Edit

Quick Edit ziggy searchfield Sep 26 2005, 11:22 PM Post #15

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From: crewkerne

Member No.: 2,920

............Right, here goes......

 

1. No one will own a cat without a valid reason.

 

2. No one will own a fertile cat unless they are a licensed cat breeder.

 

3. A very expensive licence fee shall be introduced with immediate effect.

 

4. The licence fee will be used to implement the immediate compulsory sterilisation program of all existing cats.

 

The above will result in a substantial but humane reduction of cats within a few years.

 

The population of cats in saxon/medieval times was so small that places were named after wild cats that nested there, such as cathanger( wild cat nest in the wood on the slope )

 

If the british public truly are animal lovers then they would not object to this program. Who could think that the saturation of our country by a creature with predatory instincts that go beyond mere hunger satiation is acceptable?

 

Some may argue that cats keep rats & mice populations in check, this is absolute rubbish.

 

We are plagued by other peoples cats, crapping in our gardens & killing birds, slow worms, frogs,voles etc., the easy targets.

 

we have been over run by rats & mice, the cats don't bother with them.

 

From an angling point of view, how many thousands of tonnes of fish are slaughtered each year just to feed our awsomely over-inflated artificial cat population.

 

For the people that object, because they would miss "little tiddles".......

 

Get a guinea pig, cuddle it, feed it cereal & milk, tickle it under the chin & squeak at it, it will love you far more than your self centred purring mass murderer.

 

 

I don't think you should have to have a license for a cat. I think anyone who wishes to own a cat should either keep it in their house or in a cattery outside, and under no circumstances let it loose!!

I do agree with the rest of your post and it's good that there's at least one other person besides me who realises what damage cats are doing to the wildlife not just here in the uk but worldwide.

What you say is totaly true and cats don't bother with mice or rats except for the wood mice, shrews and voles etc which are the diet of many birds of prey etc and are therefore the cats are destroying the foodchain.

When I was a gamekeeper I snared and trapped many cats with collars on etc in rabbit runs many miles away from anywhere(they were obviously out bumping off some songbirds )

I've even bolted them from rabbit warrens with the ferret up in the highlands of Scotland! needless to say they got pepperd and hung on the vermin rack.

My wifes Parents took some stray cats inn and youse'd to comment on what good hunters they were , bringing many Blackbirds, Songthrushes, Dunnocks bluetits etc etc back despite the fact that they were supposed to be animal lovers and donate every month to some animal welfare groups. Their excuse was that it's natural for them to hunt.

At the end of the day if I'm out walking my dogs, it's their instinct to kill cats so i just let nature take it's course which it very often does

Tigger.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Having being brought up in the sticks i was told by my father that a certian type of people that live in caravans used to kill them, pack clay around them bake them in their bonefires and eat them as we would a sunday roast. My thoughts are yuk but my dad said they are just like pork. I dont know how true this is ?

 

The clay or mud was smeared around the gutted hedgehog and then it was placed into the hot embers of a wood fire. Once the animal was deemed to be cooked it was rolled out of the fire and cracked open leaving all of the spines in the baked hard mud.

 

On a lot happier note we get a good number of hedgehogs in the garden center, on one boundary we have a woodland hedge twenty feet or so across and about 80 yards long, behind this lies open fields and rough ground. We leave piles of logs with gaps and the trees falling leaves make it an ideal winter home. We love to see them along with frogs and toads they do a wonderful job with the unwanted insect life.

 

We will be putting up bat homes on out new building, the roof has a big over hang to give the swallows a good place to nest. I also intend to put up a couple of large covered platforms adjacent to the trees in the hope of an owl or two.

 

We sell the safe liquid slug killer plus beer traps but there is a demand for the unsafe pellets which we have to service or lose customers. I would like to see them taken of the market completely that way animal life is safe and we are not compromised.

[MJB]

Warning about beer traps for slugs........I witnessed a pished up hedge-pig who had dined out on the easy pickings.

[gozzer]

Warning about beer traps for slugs........I witnessed a pished up hedge-pig who had dined out on the easy pickings.

 

 

Bet he said his drink had been spiked!

[chesters1]

"By multiplying the number of hedgehogs he had counted on a golf course, Dr Pat Morris, the grandfather of all hedgehog scientists, reckoned that the British hedgehog population in the mid-90s was, very roughly, about two million."

if thats what these "statistics" are based on there totally irrelevent ,the hedgehogs around here are virtually countable on one hand ,having several hundred feet of sand as a base its too dry to support hedgehog din-dins!! had he used Hankley golf club as his "reference" hedgehogs would have been extinct 50 years ago but strangely the "near" extinct sand lizard and natterjack toad would be common or garden (using his own reasoning)

[geffaz]

I believe the 'packing them in clay' bit is a myth, but yes, people do eat them.

 

Anyone remember the 'hedgehog crisps' that were brought out about 20 years ago?

nope packing in clay is a well known method to cook them! the clay bakes hard

and on removal you brake the now hard clay and the spines, skin and guts come away with it!

anybody thats done a survival course with the MOD will tell you that!

and they do tast like pork hence the name hedgehog! its true i tells ya!

 

as for sombody saying quot[ think of the 1000s of tones of fish that ar sloughtered every year to feed cats! etc]

im afraid that is cobblers, most tinned cat food like dogs is made up of offel from cows, chickens etc

my cat is evil like most cats! but a bell round his neck sorts the problem!

[Wordbender]

Having being brought up in the sticks i was told by my father that a certian type of people that live in caravans used to kill them, pack clay around them bake them in their bonefires and eat them as we would a sunday roast. My thoughts are yuk but my dad said they are just like pork. I dont know how true this is ?

 

I do. It's utter cobblers.

 

We used to eat them - the 'baked in clay' is a total myth, though - but I haven't heard of any of my lot doing so for 20 years or more. They don't taste like pork and there's sod-all meat on the poor little sods.

 

Apart from that...