Catcher in the ryegrass

Simon Whitehead proves that he and his ferrets are more than an effective cure when he is called out to deal with a garden headache

During the summer months, when the crops are as high as the temperatures, my presence isn’t needed in the fields. Instead, I am usually to be found in gardens of all shapes and sizes. It is during these months, when everyone should be enjoying their garden, that the rabbits are often enjoying them more, causing not just financial loss to garden owners, but emotional distress, too.

In terms of rabbit control, it is not a percentage game but a case of counting the numbers: when it comes to paddocks, allotments and gardens, one rabbit that is left behind might as well be a dozen or more. Once

I fill these rabbit holes in, they must stay filled in.

A day was booked in and the scene was set. I would be working in a beautiful mature garden in the tranquil Suffolk countryside; a historic manor house with a Georgian brick wall bordering what should have been a southfacing croquet-standard lawn. Unfortunately, though, the only things growing there were moss and the rabbit population. Something had to be done.

I had looked at the weather forecast, picked a relatively cool, dry day, shifted my gear from my shed to my truck and, together with a few boxes of ferrets and Tawny, set off with a spring in my step.

As I opened the weathered garden gate, it was obvious that a great many rabbits had been out enjoying themselves as on my arrival countless bobbing white scuts disappeared under the fence.

Rabbits will travel for good food, so I quietly laid the long, black net on to the sporadic patches of grass among the spongy mass of moss. It really was a poor excuse for a lawn.

As I perused my surroundings, my main concern wasn’t escapees but the imposing brick wall. Such grand architecture is constructed on a solid foundation, one that even I cannot break through with a spade. What if the rabbit warren chambers were directly underneath? What if their stop ends were tight against the brick and concrete?

Highly driven ferrets

I decided to work a trio of experienced ferrets: a jill, the mother of the kits featured this summer (Handle with care, 12 July), and a brace of highly driven, castrated hobs (hobbles). Attached to their ferret-finder collars was a bell to ensure I could hear them running around the begonias and they would not disappear into the neighbour’s chicken coop. They may remind me of Morris dancers when they are wearing them, but the bell does a great job of alerting me to a running ferret and saves me traipsing around with a ferret-finder.

I entered the group into a collection of sandy holes under some privet with apprehension.

I was unsure how the rabbits would react. But it wasn’t long before they gave away their tactics. They were clearly prepared to run the gauntlet against a predator in the midst of their home. However, my mustelids aren’t like their cousin, the stoat — they are

“One rabbit left in a garden might as well be a dozen or more. Once the holes are filled in, they stay filled in”

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 35