First Attempt At Partridge

[kinderbeano 13]

Looking for some advice on raising and releasing red legged partridge.

 

Our gun club (which is all rough walked up shooting) wants to have a go at releasing partridge on some of our ground.

The ground is pretty mixed; strips of mature mixed hardwood woods, younger (15-20 year old) beech plantation, patches of rough gorse covered ground and the rest is mostly wheat fields (winter stubble) with good heavy ditches.

So my first question is which of these ground types is best suited to partridge??

 

were looking at getting 50-100 birds for our first try. Whats the best stocking density for partridge in a release pen and what size should the pen be?

Also would we be better to buy say 10 week old poults or day old chicks?

We buy all our pheasants in as poults which saves alot of work but can be pricey. Was thinking that partridge might be a bit easier to raise from chicks?

 

Any other advice ye have would be more than welcome.

 

Thanks very much lads (and ladies).

 

[shovel leaner 7,650]

Partridge in those sort of numbers will be costly sport . The average return on partridge is about 30%. Partridge are covey birds and shooting them is a numbers game . On a commercial shoot they put thousands down and push large numbers over the guns . If they put a hundred over a gun he can only have two shots per flush unless they have loaders . If you are going to walk them up between you it can be fun but don't expect a good return . You will be keeping the partridge on the rearing field until about 12 weeks , then into pens on the covers you intend to shoot over . I think you will get a better return for your efforts with pheasant or if you have a pond some duck .

[comanche 3,038]

The usual way of releasing partridges is in groups leaked from small sectional pens with a net on top, containing food,water and some sort of shelter. Ideally each pen would have an electric fence round it . If you intend to release a lot of birds from several pens the initial outlay could be considerable. Another option, if you just want a few birds is to site a covered pen within a pheasant release pen so it benefits from the security and doubles-up on the use of the electric fence. The partridges can be leaked out with the pheasants .

The obvious danger of mixing species is that of disease and bullying but on a small Shoot with a low stocking density it would add variety to the bag .

Big, commercial partridge Shoots require a lot of planning to maximise returns but if you have modest expectations the odd partridge in a bag of pheasants bag is a talking point.

One thing partridges can't take is a lot of disturbance or being harried by loose dogs . They'll just up sticks to someone else's stubble fields and may find them more to their liking !

Edited July 18, 2015 by comanche

[jok 3,268]

We tried and tried and tried. Partridge kept up as long as possible, fed correctly and plenty of water. Good undulating land with a great variety of fields. 3 problems for us. Each problem being a road. The little sods had no thoughts of returning to the SAFE ground where they had been reared. No, the little shits got the wander lust and that was that. I'm not going to bore you with numbers but it's sure to say that surrounding shoots found it amusing at our expense. However, I think that's the way the world goes round.

[perthshire keeper 1,239]

for the numbers you want to handle i would split them into as many smaller pens as you can....say 100 birds in 5 pens and hope they kinda stay in them sized coveys.
if predation is a problem then you will need less pens and electric fence thou i have never had to use one on a partridge pen thankfully!
for patridges i would go with the more open cover like ditches and especially the scrubby gorse type land...just think they are from desert areas so gorse and wild grass is a bit like wet desert

buy your patridges as old as possible! look for some where that will go to 14 weeks with them and buy good quality birds!
for 20 patridges i would go atleast 12 ft by 24ft pen...with drinker feeder and shelter.

now shelter.....patridges LOVE nothing more than a good shelter and if they can dust under it even better! so think of this
a pen in a stubble field...at one end place 2 small straw bales with a tin sheet over it to make a warm dark hidey hole but under this dig a 2ftsq hole and chop the soil up and maybe even add a spade full of sand so they can scrat and dust and muck about in it...

if you can (and i would!) have the exact same set up on the outside of the pen...drinker...feeder and shelter but put the shelter so it backs onto the one inside the pen so they can get on it and "talk" to their palls inside

the way you relise partridge from heir pens is to me one of the most important things and we tried a few things and come up with a real good system but it would take a lot to set up from scratch and quite hard to do with just a few syndicate members maybe..and its odd but we never had much of a problem with patriges wandering apart from one year on some rented ground but we wont go into that!

[jacknife 2,005]

Keeping a couple of call birds in the pen for as long as possible should help keep them around

[kinderbeano 13]

Thats great lads thanks very much. Ive heard mixed stories about people having problems with partridge wandering off. Some seem to never have an issue and some people cant get them to stop fecking off atall.

Our ground is pretty quiet so i dont think there will be any disturbance problems, theres also no main road near by. Obviously good returns are what were aiming for but really for our small shoot of 6 people were just hoping for another species on the game list and something interesting to flush every now and again.

 

We really only have one plot of land about 2 acres where we can build a pen. Its basically a small grass field in the middle of our ground. Was going to plant it up with strips of cover crop and the like. The pen would have to be built here. We also have pheasant feeders around our ground but im thinking we might need to build new feeders closer to the ground so the partridge could reach the springs??

On this particular bit of ground we dont actually have a pheasant pen, we just release caught up birds every year and hope the feeders will keep them around (which they seem to do).

 

So if i were to get poults 10 - 14 weeks old, how long before i start releasing? and what time of year is best, right at the start of the season or some time before? I have also heard mention of people over wintering there birds but im not sure what the advantage of that would be.

[perthshire keeper 1,239]

hold them in the pen for atleast 14 days then let them out 2-3-4 at a time (thats per day!) but hold back half a dozen in the pen as call birds for as long as possible to call and keep the rest home. thats why the feeders and drinkers need to be outside
also! if you can and it makes a BIG diffrence pheasant proof some feeders and keep them on pellet s all winter they like it more than wheat,and will stick about more for it its a decent cost but will help! i would aim to have birds out for shooting atleast 14 days before your first day minus the call birds that should stay in the pen as long as possible