Feeding the Tribe (Gardening thread - Off Topic)

[Stoof]

@Heart of Storm, I have to assume the air rifles being spoken about by the gun forum people for foxes are FAC (Firearms Certificate) rifles over the 12ft/lb UK limit. I do HFT air rifle shooting and have several full limit rifles and there's no way I'd shoot a fox with one. I've shot pheasants, rabbits, pigeons, rats and crows with them, but definitely not a fox. If you were a supremely good shot you could perhaps get it through they eye socket for a clean kill, but I wouldn't try as it's far more likey to just injure it, which is unnecessarily cruel even if they are stealing your chickens - it's just doing its natural foxy thing.

For foxes you need a shotgun, proper rifle (a .22LR will do it no problem), or a ponce in a red coat on a horse. MedMos is probably right that a fairly powerful crossbow would be alright - plus you can buy one in the UK legally with no restrictions on power - but if you get one then please practice at various ranges for a good time first so you are confident you can get a kill shot with one bolt.


In vegetable news - my carrots are trolling me. Huge, beautiful bushes of green and I think "wow, the carrots attached to that must be amazing!". Not one of them more than 3" long

 

[Kitcar]

In vegetable news - my carrots are trolling me. Huge, beautiful bushes of green and I think "wow, the carrots attached to that must be amazing!". Not one of them more than 3" long

Kind of like Zohan?

 

[Heart of Storm]

Yeah I agree on the air rifle, its a non starter, I don't fancy a crossbow either, just seems a needlessly dangerous thing to have around the house.

We'll stick with what we're doing, secure henhouse and run (now made humanproof, and super secure) and supervised free-ranging only. Fortunately with ex-commercial hens they have very little expectations when it comes to space so the good sized run they have must already seem palatial to them

 

[NoOneII.]

 

[Punktaku]

I guess it’s possible some green tomatoes got mixed in with the seeds I bought, but I definitely bought red ones.

 

[Trafalgar Law]

@Heart of Storm, I have to assume the air rifles being spoken about by the gun forum people for foxes are FAC (Firearms Certificate) rifles over the 12ft/lb UK limit. I do HFT air rifle shooting and have several full limit rifles and there's no way I'd shoot a fox with one. I've shot pheasants, rabbits, pigeons, rats and crows with them, but definitely not a fox. If you were a supremely good shot you could perhaps get it through they eye socket for a clean kill, but I wouldn't try as it's far more likey to just injure it, which is unnecessarily cruel even if they are stealing your chickens - it's just doing its natural foxy thing.

For foxes you need a shotgun, proper rifle (a .22LR will do it no problem), or a ponce in a red coat on a horse. MedMos is probably right that a fairly powerful crossbow would be alright - plus you can buy one in the UK legally with no restrictions on power - but if you get one then please practice at various ranges for a good time first so you are confident you can get a kill shot with one bolt.


In vegetable news - my carrots are trolling me. Huge, beautiful bushes of green and I think "wow, the carrots attached to that must be amazing!". Not one of them more than 3" long

You aren't allowed to hunt with a crossbow (or bow) in the uk. Target shooting only.

Shame about your carrots. My wife and I had a great crop of carrots (the only thing that did crop well this year).

 

[Stoof]

You aren't allowed to hunt with a crossbow (or bow) in the uk. Target shooting only.

Indeed, as we all know everyone always lives to the letter of the law at all times in the UK, that's why our prisons are all famously empty and we were able to disband the police back in the early 90s

 

[MedMos]

No hunting with a license either?
I mean with bow or crossbow?

 

[NoOneII.]

In Germany there's a general "no hunting with bows/crossbows", no exceptions, no licenses.
A proper killing shot on a live animal is very difficult with bolts and arrows, as the common results when shooting "dead" foam animals on freerange archery events prove. And those foam animals at least hav the courtesy to stand still.
It would get pretty messy pretty often.

I'd assume the reasoning is the same in UK.

 

[MedMos]

We can in Denmark, with the right license. It takes a special license, and the equipment and your accuracy has to meet very strict requirements, but technically I could build my own bow and get a license to hunt with it.

 

[Trafalgar Law]

No hunting with a license either?
I mean with bow or crossbow?

Nope. Barbed points are illegal too.

 

[Trafalgar Law]

In Germany there's a general "no hunting with bows/crossbows", no exceptions, no licenses.
A proper killing shot on a live animal is very difficult with bolts and arrows, as the common results when shooting "dead" foam animals on freerange archery events prove. And those foam animals at least hav the courtesy to stand still.
It would get pretty messy pretty often.

I'd assume the reasoning is the same in UK.

I've seen quite a few vids on YouTube of Americans hunting with bows and crossbows, so it obviously isn't that ineffective. I'm not sure what the rationale behind the ban is.

 

[NoOneII.]

The issue is not the effectiveness of the weapon. Humans have hunted with bow and arrow for millenia before even the elements that make up black powder were known.
The issue is with how difficult to *hit* exactly right it is, and the ugly consequences those not exactly right hits have from a modern ethical/animal rights perspective.

It certainly is possible to cleanly kill a moose or bear with bow and arrow, as thoese videos you mention show. And for sure there are competent bowhunters around who manage to do so most of the time. (Riflehunters do occasionally fail to achieve it, too.)

But: Those videos show the successful instances, not the ones where it goes horribly wrong.
An amateurish bowhunter who fails regularly won't make videos of it.
A very good bowhunter is probably not showing off with his occassional or even rare failure.

I don't know the US law in detail (or laws, as probably different states have different laws in place), but I assume animal welfare is a factor in regards of licenses or permits. So you showing a botched hunt on the interwebs probably doesn't help in you keeping your permit.

Edit: Also, a botched bulletwound will usually still kill the animal within a relatively short period of time, because of the large structural damage involved. A botched arrow-wound can torture the animal for days or even weeks, before it finally dies.

 

[Scavvierising]

The idea is to stop people/kids with weak/homemade bows just sticking arrows into the side of deer, foxes etc and just injuring them.
If you are someone in the country involved in some sort of legitimate culling activity it isn't to hard to get guns
So it's to stop random people having a go at hunting and just hurting stuff. Otherwise you would then have to bring in controls and licences for bow ownership.
So choice between being allowed to hunt or having a licence to own.

 

[Kitcar]

They lose power over time. I had a pellet rifle, supposed to have the effect of a 22 at 10 yards. Bounced off the chicken's beak. What's up dude????

It WAS as Spring driven rifle...

 

[Kitcar]

You aren't allowed to hunt with a crossbow (or bow) in the uk. Target shooting only.

Shame about your carrots. My wife and I had a great crop of carrots (the only thing that did crop well this year).

You aren't allowed to hunt with a crossbow (or bow) in the uk. Target shooting only.

How do they justify THAT?

 

[NoOneII.]

How do they justify THAT?

With something in the vein of what's explained in this post and this post .

 

[Stoof]

How do they justify THAT?

Many reasons of varied validity. The main one is probably @Scavvierising says - animal welfare. I totally understand that one, with a bow in particular it's far harder than using a gun. A crossbow is closer to a rifle but, again, due to the arc of the bolt and slower velocities it's far harder to hit reliably at varied ranges and weather conditions. Then there's slightly more depressing reasons - you don't want a population going and hunting their own food with a tool that you don't licence or own, so you make it illegal, and you certainly don't want a population well practiced at using projectile weapons that are simple to manufacture in a garage with some bits of wood and nylon rope that don't rely on an ammunition supply from a third party. It was only in 1981 that it became illegal, so it's not something stretching way back into history.

 

[Heart of Storm]

Lets keep in mind that the UK is not the US, we don't have large areas of wilderness in which its viable to "hunt your own food"

Hunting in the UK is almost exclusively done by arrangement on private land.

 

[Kitcar]

hen there's slightly more depressing reasons - you don't want a population going and hunting their own food with a tool that you don't licence or own, so you make it illegal, and you certainly don't want a population well practiced at using projectile weapons that are simple to manufacture in a garage with some bits of wood and nylon rope that don't rely on an ammunition supply from a third party.

May be true, but that is mutant ratshit!