farmerrow

I suppose I should not moan too much as we fed half the wheat 20 ton as we did last year due to the extra grub about

How did everyone find this season? Certainly not good as the last but then that was an exceptional year. We really lacked the cold weather to bring the birds to the food. Pleased with the results after such a wet year and we had a shaky start with backward birds but it all came right , thank god. We shot a good return on our partridge but a poor year on the pheasants, even if there is still plenty about just did not catch up with them. Just interested to see how others found it?

Makes me laugh when someone says poaching is not stealing!! It is nothing more than stealing. It angers me on my farms I manage the deer which completely gets messed up by people poaching who kill anything they come across causing as much damage as they can while stealing anything they can. I have to kill all the hares in fields alongside all the roads to stop these lunatics driving all over my crops. I watch them through night vision and thermal imagery call the police and receive no help. Got fed up with it so in the problem areas I gave up and removed all temptation. So at the moment they p

Check out starlights led torches been using them to shoot foxes at night amazing torch find it better than lamps and they sell kits to mount it on your rifles reckon it goes over 500 metres. Shooting a lot of foxes with it at the mo

Looking for any advice on what is the best .17 hmr ? Love thumbhole stocks and good triggers?

Flubenvet very easy to feed

I would disagree with that different breeds have very different habits. I am quite shocked how different Kansas pheasants, bazanty and the Scandinavian first crosses all behave so differently on my shoots.Four years ago I would have never thought this. They all have different holding habits and flying habits. I have actually been caught out and found the Kansas and bazanties hold so well you have to work hard to get them out of the area of the release pens to make sure they don't suffer from disease. I believe that Kansas hold the best on my farms but I don't have much woodland compared to som

No rudeness was meant but when putting down tens of thousands of birds of which I gave plenty of experience you spend a lot of time not doing what an old traditional keeper would do ie you spend a lot of time rearing and feeding rather than things like habitat improvement and vermin control.i am afraid it is the economics of today a few keepers doing what a lot of keepers would have been doing and being stretched to there limits and beyond. It can be a very hard life.

I am not a keeper I am privileged to own an estate on which a couple of shoots are run

Glad to hear that. I would love to be able to afford to just do just guest days but I have to sell to afford to keep the shoots going. But nice to hear there are people with the same ideals. You must find it more pleasurable from being a commercial( not being rude) chicken farmer to a being able to have enough time to keeper properly. It should always be about sport .

Lot of estates around here have to vaccinate against mycoplasma as there has been such a problem due to over stocking. Stocking rates I think you try and give them as much room as possible and try and not get to greedy. The key to running a good shoot is to consistently have good seasons so you need to avoid disease. I think your stocking rate is very high but if you get on a shoot a reasonable number early on you would soon reduce the pressure and you would be alright but certainly I would want less on the ground than that. One bird per 200m2 is pretty tight.

Every shoot is different but if you work out the density that keeper is talking about it is one bird every 3.5 metres so you would not see the ground it would just be a sea of birds. I think someone is not being very truthful . There would so much disease in that suituation that it would not last very long at that stocking rate. Bit like the broadchalke valley here in wiltshire so many partridge and pheasants are put down that if one person gets a touch of hexamita it sweeps through everyone's shoots. Most of these problems ( bulgy eye,hexamita, coccidiosis even gapeworm) are so contagious tha

Fair enough sorry. I am lucky enough to have two shoots on my land and I know putting the numbers people have been talking about is a recipe for disaster for the game and the environment.

Chicken farming not proper shooting

Larch surrounded by Lawson cypress or western red cedar nothing better for roosting cover lovely and warm five star accommodation for a pheasant