Injured Fox in my garden - what to do.

[Paulus]

The vet my wife used to work for had £80,000 pounds worth of equipment to pay for, 6 staff, the mortgage, gas, electric etc. It cost her £1000 just to open the front door in the morning, before any clients came in. Too many people try to equate Vets, and other professionals with the NHS where you can see a doctor for nothing, but it is not nothing because you have already paid for the visit and discounted prescriptions through the tax system. That is of course that you are a tax payer, in which case it is even cheaper.

 

[claudbutler]

I like foxes.

But will they win the premiership title

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

But I couldn't eat a whole one?

Sadly, I probably could. If it was deep-fried. And came with chips.

 

[slowmotion]

When an unidentified cat was injured in an altercation with a car in the village where I used to live, the local vet took it in, treated it, and when no owner could be found they rehomed it, all at no charge to anyone. Not all vets are only in it for the money - in fact I'd say most of them aren't.

Back in the days of white dog poo, somebody brought a small rather wonky Jack Russell terrier to the surgery to be eased into the next world by an injection of 20% pentobarbitone. For some reason, my father took a shine to Freddie and offered to keep him alive. He remained our much loved family dog for several years until he eventually came to grief under the wheels of a car during one of his many frisky adventures on the streets of town.

 

[rich p]

Back in the days of white dog poo, somebody brought a small rather wonky Jack Russell terrier to the surgery to be eased into the next world by an injection of 20% pentobarbitone. For some reason, my father took a shine to Freddie and offered to keep him alive. He remained our much loved family dog for several years until he eventually came to grief under the wheels of a car during one of his many frisky adventures on the streets of town.

Hmmm, at least Lassie stories had a happy ending...

 

[slowmotion]

Hmmm, at least Lassie stories had a happy ending...

This sort of thing...?

 

[rich p]

This sort of thing...? View attachment 124559

Mrs Slomo decided to cough up for the cosmetic stuff then?

 

[slowmotion]

That is Slomo post op?

I have to return for a bit more "work" on my ears.

 

[ufkacbln]

Hmmm, at least Lassie stories had a happy ending...

So do Ms Goodbody's clients

 

[ufkacbln]

Hmmm, at least Lassie stories had a happy ending...

You do now how many Lassies there were - it sometimes took several dogs for a series or movie

 

[SteCenturion]

Where are the gun users on here? You know, the ones who say shooting defenceless creatures is good for conversation!

 

[SteCenturion]

Yes but you're saying they need money to live and i'm saying they could do the job for a quarter of that, to "survive". When you're talking about survival are you on about Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon champagne survival?

Good point, well made.

 

[SteCenturion]

Now if you'd done better at school, got the necessary qualification to take the training which lasts for eight years you could have done the job for minimum wage and put them to shame.

Also a good point well made.

 

[Cubist]

Not at all. The quarry birds are laid down. I made that clear. We source them as ethically as we can. We buy 2200 partridge poults each year, in August, by which time we will have made sure they have cover, secure pens with no damage to minimise injury, and we buy locally so that they spend as little time as absolutely possible in transit. We aim for 30 minutes from first being crated to the release pen.

The birds are inspected daily to ensure they are healthy, fed and watered. A team of us take it in turns to look after them until they are released in September.

We shoot 35 percent of what we put down in an average year. That works out at approximately two to three birds per gun per shoot day, so none are surplus. We absolutely insist all guns take and eat a brace apiece.

Round woods wouldn't exist on many farms were it not for the traditional pheasant shoot. Beetle banks were designed and built to provide a food source for partridge. Hedgerows are far more expensive to maintain than fencing. Set aside cover strips would otherwise be a financial loss to farmers on whose land any shoot exists.

I don't expect any of these inconvenient facts to appear in any of the reading you do. Perhaps I could implore you to read a bit wider, with a view to understanding how the infrastructure works. Not just the big commercial estates, but the local rural stuff. That's what I am involved with, and I am trying to show you that there are huge differences between the way shooting carries on in 2016.

By the way, BASC have introduced new best practice guidelines insisting that shot birds make it into the food chain, and not the stink pit which is a valid criticism of some enterprises.

I hope you can start to be reassured that the ethics of many shooters don't mirror those of the caricatures presented by interest and pressure groups. Misinformation and a lack of willingness to think a bit deeper creates the sort of polarised argument I'm trying to avoid.

 

[byegad]

A Gamekeeper was done by RSPCA for killing several birds of prey last year IIRC and another plus the landlord were both fined for similar offences. Certainly the view of the Wildlife Trusts and RSPCA is that there are some gamekeepers who firmly believe that a hooked beak deserves death. My local Photogroup had a speaker last year who showed the video evidence, filmed by remote camera by the RSPCA on behalf of the local police, of the first of the above trapping and then clubbing to death several Buzzards.

I know not all follow the old ways on birds of prey but sadly some do.