Ferreting
The name "ferret" is derived from the Latin furittus, meaning "little thief", a likely reference to the common ferret penchant for secreting away small items.
Ferrets, a domesticated Polecat, are one of the rabbit’s natural adversaries below ground. Rabbits are the quarry that we concern ourselves with. Be under no illusion that we highly respect this intelligent survivor that occasionally outsmarts us, the ferrets and our lurcher!
The smell and the sound of the ferrets in the pipes of the warren make the rabbit bolt out of the warren at speeds approaching 25mph. Rabbits are sprinters and can run between 35 and 45mph to evade predators.
We offer a natural and ancient fieldcraft service to control your rabbit population.
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Every situation is different.
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As such each rabbiting job requires a survey to assess the lie of the land as we are often working around horses and livestock.
Our surveys and estimates are free. However, you will require repeat visits to keep the rabbit population down to a manageable level.
The UK rabbit population was estimated at 45m in 2007 rising annually by 2%. Causing an underestimated £150m worth of damage to crops and gardens. Remember these costs do not include the cost to control nor to repair the damage rabbits cause. As a landowner or occupier, you are duty bound to control the rabbit population under The Pest Act 1954.
Control being the key word as rabbits are an invasive species. Probably brought over from Hispania, now Spain and Portugal, by Roman soldiers who liked eating them.
Recent archaeological evidence helps to reinforce that this is the case and not the Normans as previously thought. The first recorded account that we know of is by Pliny the Elder, over 2000yrs ago in 6BC describing the problem that the Balearic Islands had with rabbits:

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'The rabbit is an extremely prolific animal which produces famine in the Balearic Islands by destroying the harvests. It is a well-known fact that the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands begged the late Emperor Augustus to send them soldiers to prevent the too rapid increase of these animals. The ferret is greatly esteemed for its skill in catching them. It is thrown into the burrows, with their numerous outlets, and as it drives them out, they are seized.'
According to phylogenetic studies, the ferret was domesticated from the European polecat (Mustela putorius), likely from a North African lineage.
Analysis of mitochondrial DNA suggests that ferrets were domesticated around 2,500 years ago.
Which makes Ferreting a Neolithic skill!
