By Mike Swan, GWCT Head of Education
6 minute read
This time of year always brings a flurry of enquiries to the GWCT advisory team from people who have found a bit of ground and want to set up a shoot. So, what do you need to do to turn this dream into a practical reality?
The first thought is usually to build a pheasant pen, but there are some other considerations that perhaps even come ahead of that. Is the ground suitable? Do you need to release at all, or can you develop what you want with wild game? You will need at least some gamebird habitat, even if only a few hedgerows and perhaps a patch of scrub.
An odd sunny hollow is a help too, but nowhere is a complete write off. In most cases releasing some pheasants is a good place to start, but four decades as part of the GWCT advisory service have convinced me that good advice right at the beginning is essential. Even if you have lots of experience, perhaps including guidance from an old timer who has done it all before, a bit of outside corroboration is at least reassuring.
A Sound Pheasant Pen
So, having concluded that releasing some pheasants is right for you, what do you need to build a pen? Remember, the process is called releasing, so the aim is to provide a safe home base from which birds trickle out across the shoot. It is essential to use good quality materials, including strong, rot proof posts.
To keep out stoats and rats I recommend 25mm wire mesh for the lower part of the fence, but you can manage fine with 50mm for the top two thirds. Plastic deer net of the sort supplied by Collins Nets is lighter and easier to hang than wire, and should last just as well. Make sure that your fence ends up at least 2m high, with 30cm turned out top and bottom to foil both digging and climbing predators.
Outside the pen I strongly advise an electric fence to deter foxes and stray dogs; two strands at 15 and 30 cm height and about 45cm out will work very well, making the whole construction into a zone of fear. Please also remember to install plenty of re-entry points, complete with GWCT pattern anti fox grids.
Do not make a small pen, as this invariable results in overcrowding, leading to health issues and an easier life for predators. The GWCT rule of thumb, which is enshrined in the Code of Good Shooting Practice is to allow 10 square metres per poult, which equates to a thousand birds per hectare. To avoid damage risk in sensitive ancient semi natural woodland, this rate falls to 700 per ha.
One other thought is to allow for growth; building a pen to house more birds than you plan to start with will give room for this. Another mantra of mine is to keep the number of pens to a minimum. Small, scattered pens take far more time to service than a big central one, and cost more too.
The materials to build a good one will probably cost around £10 per metre all in. So, for example, if you wished to release a thousand pheasants, a 100m square, one hectare pen would be £4k. If you chose to put in two half hectare pens at 75m square, this adds up to 600m, so increasing the cost by 50%.
Release Pen legalities
Most pens need no permission, but of you were planning to release on a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) you would need consent from Natural England/Natural Resources Wales/Nature Scot. In England there is a second issue to check, and that is whether you are in or within 500m of a European designated site.
In this case you need to abide by a general licence that allows gamebird releasing, but restricts the maximum density of release, pretty much in accord with what the Code of Good Shooting Practice says. You must also report numbers released under this licence to NE. As well as this there is a UK wide need under the poultry registration scheme to register all flocks of 50 or more birds, including gamebirds in release pens.
Where to Get Birds, and how many?
You will see above that I have already assumed that you will release poults, but ex layers are worth a thought, not least because they are usually cheaper. Being adult birds, they are perhaps a bit better able to look after themselves, but that also means they are likely to be wandering away early too. Add the fact that there is a preponderance of hens, and you compound this; GWCT tagging studies invariably show that hens are more inclined to stray than cocks.
When it comes to working out how many to buy, to provide the amount of shooting that you want, don’t believe those who claim forty-five, and even fifty percent returns. These folk are either fibbing or living in a world of net gain from neighbours. If you expect to get a third back, you will be being realistic; then if you are lucky and get somewhere in the mid to high thirties, you will be smiling.
I would always buy from a Game Farmers Association member, choosing poults rather than day olds. They have both professionalism and economies of scale on their side, which means that you are unlikely to save much by rearing your own. Price is clearly important, but the cheapest is rarely the best value.
Always ask about stock provenance, avoiding producers who use ‘caught up’ birds as breeding stock. This is cheaper than a closed flock, but quality and performance can be poor. Anything under £4 per poult for pheasants is either remarkable value or suspect.
Feeders and drinkers – smoothing the transition
Being caught, crated up, driven through the night, and liberated into an unfamiliar world is all a bit stressful for a poult, so please make sure of consistency in as many things as possible. Changing the diet can cause an upset tum at any time, so please supply exactly the same food to start.
Most game farmers will suggest this, and you will need to factor in about two tonnes of growers pellets per thousand birds. Please also make sure that you have some identical feeders so that they find food easily. Water in the pen is essential too, and an automatic watering system is much the best.
Most of us will gradually change over to wheat in some reasonably rat proof hoppers by autumn. Please remember not to skimp on numbers of feeder; ‘trough competition’ is a recipe for causing straying. As a rule of thumb, I aim for a hopper for every 10 to 15 birds. Please also remember that while big feeders hold more food, they do not always offer more feeding space.
Protection from predation
From the moment your poults arrive, the local predators will be on their case. The scent of succulent pheasant poults wafting downwind will have the local foxes salivating, along with the likes of mink and stoats. GWCT radio tracking studies have shown that over 20% of the average release gets gobbled up by foxes before the first shot of the season is fired, even on well keepered shoots. I should add that this is not about mass kills in the pen, but a war of attrition as the birds spread away.
So, aside from ammunition costs for foxing, you will also need to think of traps and snares. A few mink cages at about £35 each are a good investment around a pen; if you set them tight to the wire, they will catch rats and grey squirrels as well as stoats and mink. If there is a water course anywhere near, I’d also recommend a mink raft to intercept them before they come ashore. At a bit under £100 it can save a mass kill in the pen.
A couple of dozen code compliant DB fox snares set in the vicinity of the pen will surely intercept a fox or two, and will set you back less than £100, but do book a place on a GWCT course, and get trained in how to use them. All this predation control kit can be sourced from Perdix Wildlife Supplies.
This whole project can seem like a bit of an expensive rollercoaster ride, but if you hang on tight, it will surely be great fun. Just stay focussed and when the first birds start flying over you and your mates all the worry will fade to insignificance.
This article first appeared in Shooting Times