Who releases their own?

[Falcon]

Ok chaps and chapesses,
How many on here release their own partridges, pheasants, game etc,?
What are you putting down this year, what number, and why that particular species? Basically let's make this thread the place for tips and chat on poult rearing, vermin control etc,
Hubby will be putting down around 70 ring neck pheasant poults and he's hoping to be putting some mallard down too this year.
Over to you! :wink:

[Saker-Clive]

Of the count being put down, how many are expected to be taken by fox, poachers, straying or wild birds?

Are you going to be flying a Gos at them? :lol:

[Saker-Clive]

I've been wanting to put down some Red legged partridge on a couple of my shooting/flying grounds but haven't seen any advertised :sad: keep going to the country fairs etc. but they only seem to have chickens, ducks and geese!!!!!

[NightOwl]

will be putting down 50 pheasant poults on a farm my mate has permission on. would have put down more but we picked up a very nice bit of permission this year who will be putting down 4 thousand partridge and 15 thousand pheasant. bought some springs at the usk fair - just need a few bins now and we're away. can't wait - first year for me with a gos.

[OutFlying]

I usually buy in mature cock pheasants in February off the shoots for a £1.00 each. Put 2 or 3 pens up with half a dozen hen pheasants with a cock pheasant in each. The rest of the cocks are released onto the land, plenty of feeders in the woods and surrounding fields. The hen pheasants attract and keep a lot of the released cocks interested and by the time the season starts your flying at game that is very fit and provides a testing flight.

Plenty of vermin control is carried out including shooting, larsen traps, fenn traps.

Over a period of years the land now has wild breeding pheasants as well. Most years 150-200 pheasants released but this year (i'm not flying them) 2 of the other people i fly with have put 400 cock birds down in early March - the fields now look like a commercial shoot. :lol:

[OutFlying]

I've been wanting to put down some Red legged partridge on a couple of my shooting/flying grounds but haven't seen any advertised :sad: keep going to the country fairs etc. but they only seem to have chickens, ducks and geese!!!!!

Buy the shooting times, game rearers advertised in the back pages - thousands of red legs available.

OF.

[OutFlying]

It is no use releasing game onto land if it is not suitable. Is there somewhere for the pheasants to roost i.e woodland ? plenty of cover, natural food, water / stream, hedges etc.

OF.

[Saker-Clive]

My grounds are all more than suitable; on 2 grounds, the adjacent land breeds and releases 1000's :lol:, on the ground I wantd to put some down on, we get a few stragglers come in from distant shoots but there's nothing established.

[OutFlying]

SS, I think falcon7 does a lot of ground preparation for establishing wild grey partridge populations - he maybe the best to comment of ground prep for partridges.

Tha land comment is not directed at yourself it is a general statement to anyone. :oops:

OF.

[Moritz]

When we put phasants down we make sure that the poults are in a pen with adult birds. They teach them to roost on trees and how to behave in the wild. Do not take the ringnecked phasants they are even stupider then the other ones.

Moritz

[Saker-Clive]

Many thanks OF

[Falcon]

Clive we have copies of shooting times here and sporting gun as well, i'll have a read through and get some numbers for you and pm them to you.

[Moritz]

OF how do you trap the male phasants?

Moritz

[Hawkmaster]

I am hatching some Bobwhites, chukars & pheasants.

[OutFlying]

OF how do you trap the male phasants?

Moritz

They are caught up by the gamekeepers using a pen with a barrel feeder and a funnel trap.

[Saker-Clive]

Thanks Falcon.xx

[Falcon]

i dare say i might have a go at the pheasants and ducks, but they are put down for hubby and a couple of his mates for rough shooting. it's nice having them around, we've got a few melinistics (can't spell it, but the dark coloured ones) which have got away from the gun and they've bred over the last couple of years too. Tried a few red legged partridges but the land is not suitable for them, they like open areas with not too deep a vegetation, but they are good sport.

[Varmint]

Is it Legal to release Bobwhites?

[OutFlying]

not permanently

[Hawkmaster]

They are good for training dogs and they come back home at the end of the day.

I wonder if they would be good for a gamehawk in the UK?

[OutFlying]

No they would be rubbish, I bred a great amount of them a 3 or 4 years back - kept them in a very large pen and they never gained a level of fitness that would test a hawk (e.g a spar) or falcon. Very short flight before they dump in again. This was also the same for the bob white that didn't come back and had an extended hack :wink:


OF.

[Moritz]

Thx OF, I never knew that game keepers sell the spare phasants at the end of the season. Why do they do that?

Moritz

[OutFlying]

Many shoots will collect up the hen pheasants at the end of the season, and send them to game farms for egg production. The remaining cocks are then sold off. I think they become territorial on the land and will drive each other out over a wide area. Not a problem for myself as I put them down a fairly large moorside and plenty of surrounding fields.

OF.

[Moritz]

Ok now I get. Some stuff that you british do are so strange to me, as we are happy if the phasants become teretorial and start breeding.

Moritz

[OutFlying]

The bigger commercial shoots could never breed enough pheasants naturally on the land to maintain the number of let days. 20,000 or more pheasants are put down on some shoots - that's a hell of a lot of natural breeding to sustain numbers like that. Pheasants are notorious bad rearers / hatchers in the wild - once disturbed will leave the eggs and not return.

[Falcon]

So when are you guys getting poults (those of you that put poults down that is)?

[Sprout]

I'm putting 200 Grey partridge down but feeding the land well to bring in the pheasants from the neighbouring land!! Organised with the farmer to leave a 5m strip uncut after silaging to provide some cover etc around all the fields and every other field is set aside anyway

[BlackHawke]

the guy who rents the land where we have field meets also has regular shoots and at the end of last season he had over 200% return on the birds he put down and there was still plenty on his land end of season. he put a couple of thousand down

[OutFlying]

the guy who rents the land where we have field meets also has regular shoots and at the end of last season he had over 200% return on the birds he put down and there was still plenty on his land end of season. he put a couple of thousand down

What - he put 2000 down and shot 4000 pheasants. Most shoots I know look for 50% ish return. To shoot double the number you put down is unheard of.
Where did the extras come from - neighbouring shoots or wild hatched / reared ?
OF.

[BlackHawke]

neighbouring land! he has a lot of shoots on his land, he rents it of the owners just for that reason. plus the bloke i'm doing my gundog training with trains his dogs over there. he shoots also, plus we have 10 or 12 birds over there every couple of weeks at field meets, loads of hare and rabbit to!! sometimes there is to much quarry for the birds to fly at!

well this information is wot he told us i've got no reason to disbeleive him. there is always a lot of quarry!

[OutFlying]

I thought there must have been a shoot(s) next door, must have a poor gamekeeper. One persons lost is another gain :lol: . I wonder how long the shoot owner will put up with that number of losses ? Best get in there and have a bumper season before they wise up.

OF.

[BlackHawke]

theres at least 2 farms i know of with adjoining land that have shoots plus whats been bred wild