A funny thing happened at the Gun shop today

[Piglead]

I wandered down to my gun dealer today to pay for a Rossi 92 in 44-40 ! I was going well until he opened the safe to get it out .As he did I noticed a Trapper in 30-30 in almost new condition ! I found that I knew it's history & Knew for a fact that it would have been lucky to have fired 200rnds ! I decided there & then that I did'nt really want a Rossi !!!! & we settled down to haggle ! now my Gun Guy is also a Roo shooter but only works weekends & has not been having a good run of late ! So I suggested that if the pencil could be sharpened to cut the price I could probarly intised into letting him shoot a couple of my properties for a couple of months ! After two hours of snarling & gnashing of teeth! (& a sum of $115.00) I walked away the owner of a near new 94 trapper!

dave

[Buckshot]

............Piglead, you're a right wanker, but good on ya anyway! I suppose it helps to have land available for game shooting, to parlay with too. I know a couple guys who might trade quite a bit to hunt a ground squirrel infested field for a day or so.

............Buckshot

[Piglead]

............Piglead, you're a right wanker, but good on ya anyway! I suppose it helps to have land available for game shooting, to parlay with too. I know a couple guys who might trade quite a bit to hunt a ground squirrel infested field for a day or so.

............Buckshot

Buckshot let me explain ! As a Pro shooter I have acsess to around 20 large sheep stations in which I ply my trade ! Each is given a alocation of the Number of Roos they can destroy But they can only destroy so many them selves for personal use, the rest have to be culled by Pro shooters for pet food & human consumtion Some of these properties are about 800squ kms in size & take up a fair chunk of the north of SA ! So letting a weekend Semi Pro on do'nt really touch the surface of what I do ! The funy thing is that our family Property on which I live is only 20,000 acres Small by comparision but large in our neck of the woods But due to zoning I ca'nt shoot there as a Pro! Also I'm going back on to Camels for a spell on contract Culling! & it's nice to have a reliable shooter to watch over your patch!

[Scrounger]

Buckshot let me explain ! As a Pro shooter I have acsess to around 20 large sheep stations in which I ply my trade ! Each is given a alocation of the Number of Roos they can destroy But they can only destroy so many them selves for personal use, the rest have to be culled by Pro shooters for pet food & human consumtion Some of these properties are about 800squ kms in size & take up a fair chunk of the north of SA ! So letting a weekend Semi Pro on do'nt really touch the surface of what I do ! The funy thing is that our family Property on which I live is only 20,000 acres Small by comparision but large in our neck of the woods But due to zoning I ca'nt shoot there as a Pro! Also I'm going back on to Camels for a spell on contract Culling! & it's nice to have a reliable shooter to watch over your patch!

Twenty large sheep stations? Now you've done it! A couple of these guys from Texas will be knocking on your door in a few days. And they won't be there to shoot 'roos....

[carpetman]

Piglead---I dont relate to 800 squ KM"s---don't have a clue what size that is. Now the 20,000 acre place,I understand your problem. Too small to even have a yard. Atleast you don't have to mow. Maybe if a few of the neighbors would sell you their 20,000 acres,you could have a small lawn. BTW welcome and I like hearing the stories from Australia. G'day from Texas mate.

[Scrounger]

I told you, piglead, he's knocking on the door right now. And whatever you do, don't tell him about all the cats there...
By the way, that's about 300 square miles or sections.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I told you, piglead, he's knocking on the door right now. And whatever you do, don't tell him about all the cats there...
By the way, that's about 300 square miles or sections.

1mile=1.6km (roughly), therefore 800square kms, is closer to 500square miles. Decent walk to check the fences, which is why most of these places in australia don't have fences, for the cost of the fence, you could probably buy the joint next door. Sounds big, but you would probably need 20 acres to feed a single cow. My uncle when he was alive used to say the land outback was so sparse, a horse couldn't walk quick enough to get a feed. He used to call horses 'turners.' 'Turn good feed into ****, not much use for anything else boy!'

[grumble]

Right on, Mick. A Km is about 0.6 miles, so the easy way to do the conversion in your head is to multiply Km X 0.6. That comes in handy if you're driving an American car somewhere where the speed limits are posted in Km/hour. So, a 40 KPH speed zone is .6 X 40 = 24 MPH.

[9.3X62AL]

Right enough, .6 conversion factor linear measurement, or 5/8 if you think in fractions.

Squaring these linear differences yields an area differential factor of roughly .38 sq. mile = 1 sq. km. 1 sq. mile = 640 acres, so 1 sq. km = 243.2 acres.

It's still a LOT of friggin' land to hunt and ride herd on.

[Piglead]

The problem is that they can only run 4 sheep or one beast to the squr mile out furhter than us!Uor family find it hard growing wheat & running 800 sheep (why do I hear Texian teeth gnashing when ever I say sheep? )

[wills]

The problem is that they can only run 4 sheep or one beast to the squr mile out furhter than us!Uor family find it hard growing wheat & running 800 sheep (why do I hear Texian teeth gnashing when ever I say sheep? )

Six hundred forty acres per animal unit, not real lush grazing.

As you know, the Carpetman has taken up bicycling, a known side effect of which is numbness of the extremities, including the – emmm, shall we say, – “sheep prod” - so it may be the sheep will be safe for a while.

[Scrounger]

The problem is that they can only run 4 sheep or one beast to the squr mile out furhter than us!Uor family find it hard growing wheat & running 800 sheep (why do I hear Texian teeth gnashing when ever I say sheep? )

Someone sent me an email telling me that one of our Moderators sold his property in Montana and is hitch-hiking to Australia...

[drinks]

PL;
Parts of West Texas, near where Carpetman live, have a capacity of 1 unit, that is , a cow and calf or a bull, per 300 acres.
Sheep and angora goats can be run a little more closely, but there is really not much out there to eat.
150 years ago, before the prairie dogs were poisoned out and the aquifers were pumped dry, the grass was 3-4' high, springs were all over the place and there was no mesquite, a legume from Mexico that destroys the land and water table, the prairie dogs kept it out, afer the prairie dogs went, the mesquite took over, now it only gets 8-12' high out there, when in other parts of Texas it gets to be 60 ' and 3' on the stump.

[trooperdan]

PL;
150 years ago, before the prairie dogs were poisoned out and the aquifers were pumped dry, the grass was 3-4' high, springs were all over the place and there was no mesquite, a legume from Mexico that destroys the land and water table, the prairie dogs kept it out, afer the prairie dogs went, the mesquite took over, now it only gets 8-12' high out there, when in other parts of Texas it gets to be 60 ' and 3' on the stump.

Drinks, that is very interesting! I haven't ever heard that prairie dogs served any good purpose at all! I din't know that the mesquite came from mexico either!

[carpetman]

Drinks---I never heard it explained that way---makes sense. I also didnt know mesquites were classified as legume. Hell,other than a peanut is a legume,I don't know what legumes are. I did know mesquites grow a bean like gizzie which are the seeds. Is that why they are legumes? Guess the prairie dogs ate them? Besides all that,I'm not even sure how you pronounce legume so if I ever used that word in a conversation,I'd have to just write it down. Besides the mesquites wiping out the water,the cedars do the same---and in some areas they even seem to wipe out the mesquites. What is needed to eat the cedar? Better not ask,they imported nutria here to eat the vegetation out of the lakes--now we have nutria problem. Now I did hear one theory that a guy didn't believe mesquite trees are sucking up all the water. His theory was that grass grows all the way to a mesquite tree so there must be water?????

[wills]

Horses and cattle like to eat mesquite beans because they are sweet; if they eat to many they can become impacted and die. I read somewhere the cattle drives contributed to the spread of the mesquite, moving large numbers of cattle from South Texas toward the north, spreading the undigested beans in the manure.

Historically, as I understand, mesquites and cedar were also kept in check by fires, both naturally occurring and set by Indians. As the Anglo culture took over fires were not encouraged and eventually suppressed, enabling the mesquite to proliferate.

Now, around the Peoples Republic of Travis County, the cedars are the habitat of some endangered black capped verieos and golden cheeked warblers.

[carpetman]

Wills in Idaho use to pick wild asparagus along fence lines. I suspect it was deposited there well fertilized by birds. Reason I think this is I have not seen cattle and horses perch on fences,but spreading mesquites like you described makes sense. Was probably ilegal immigrating cattle and horses and maybe even coyotes is how Texas got them from Mexico. Now you don't reckon George Bush heard we needed fires to control mesquite and cedar and imported fire ants when he was govenor?

[drinks]

A very large family found all over the warmer parts of the world, the Acacia group of trees are found all over the south, Locust, Acacia, Retama, Coral Bean, Ebony Ape's Earrings, yes that is the correct name for the Ebony tree of south Texas, beans and field peas such as pintos and blackeyes, sensitive plant, most of the short thorny brush in Texas and peanuts are all Legumes.
The Ashe Juniper, aka Mountain Cedar is a bad water waster, Tamarix, Salt Cedar is another name ,is really bad too.
The State claims 40% of the water of the Pecos is taken by Tamarix.
The prairie dog is what is called a keystone member of the community, it provided homes for a number of furred, feathered and scaley things, the holes trapped much of the rain so it soaked in rather than running off, the dogs kept trees out by eating the sprouts, kept the grass renewed by removing the old tough parts and provided a lot of tasty meals for predators.
Everywhere the prairie dog has been eradicated, the prairie has turned into dry brushland.
The Nature Conservancy, the only group I support has had a 5 year program in Mexico of protecting and expanding Prairie Dog colonies, where the dogs are, the place is still prairie, next places over , without Prairie Dogs are rapidly becoming brasada, thorn jungle.
I have no problem with shooting Prairie Dogs, but I do feel they should be used, be protected with seasons and limits and outlaw all poisoning.
Sorry for the long post, I am not only a conservative, but a conservationist, to me that means taking what you use and not wasteing.

[carpetman]

drinks---Thanks for the enlightenment on prarie dogs--I always just thought they ruined the land with all the holes. Now if you tell me rattlesnakes are beneficial because of all the rodents they kill--sorry---I'll buy traps.

[waksupi]

Don, take a close look at the Nature Conservancy. Who donates, who they give money to, what they spend money on, and what happens to land they get. I know of a couple places they "saved", only to have administrator types build large homes on the tracts.
Always follow the money. Some groups aren't always what they appear to be on the surface.