The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: tobytoby on March 20, 2012, 09:09:30 pm
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This may seem a random question, but i would like to know any possible issues that could arise with my neighbouring pheasant rearing shooting syndicate.
It is my intention to put approx 20 free range hens(behind electric poultry netting) - is there any diseases that could transfer between my birds and the pheasants (raised and realeased to be shoot), however some nest and become feral.
Many thanks
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I wouldn't give it another thought. The pheasants won't infect your hens with anything other wild birds will which is practically nothing!
I have a pheasant who visits my hen runs daily and has done, on and off, for the past year. Or are you worried your birds may become upset by the noise of guns?
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When we were members of a pheasant syndicate the food was highly medicated so they are probably the healthiest birds around. Dont know if food regulations have changed in the last 9 years though. I would not worry about it at all. If there is a pheasant syndicate as your neighbours the gamekeeper will also be on predator control around you, a bonus !
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My land borders onto what I believe is one of the largest shoots in the country ......or so I have been told. A shoot occurs in the wood adjoining my propery but luckily they only shoot there about once during the season and it is done and dusted in half an hour. So not really a problem.
I have always kept hens but never had any problems with worms or external parasites until moving here. Could have just been lucky! However when discussing hen keeping with the game keepers wife,also a poulty keeper, she said that it was well known among keepers that the worst place to keep poultry was next to a shoot. She said that they carried all sorts and those not shot during the season usually died off during the winter due to heavy worm burdens. M daughter , bless her, has brought me a coulple of pheasants that she caught that looked like they were suffering from worms.
My hens free range totally over a couple of acres and so mix freely with the phessies. I now remove my hoppers during the day and throw food out to my hens at intervals because the phessies will eat more than the hens and I dont want to encourage them due to what they may bring. Yours you will say will be enclosed behind a fence so this will limit some of the problems I experience.
A neighbour at a nearby holding lives in a rented estate property and the shoot actually goes onto his land. On a few occasions the gundogs have caught and killed his hens. They have given him a brace of pheasants as compensation! I would not be happy. I have asked the keepers wife to inform me when the wood is to be shot which she kindly does and I keep my hens in their runs on that day. My property is well fenced but a gundog can easily clear a stock fence. Of course not all gundogs would pick up hens but some will ......not worth the risk or stress of dogs running amongst hens.
Sorry it sounds as though I am having a rant but no a few phessies are good to see but 30 in your hen pen gobbling your food are not so appealing. They also panic when you approach, cant find the door, fly into the wire and kill themselves .....daughter in tears!!!!!
Still if yours are enclosed I think you will experience few of these problems. It wouldnt stop me from keeping them.
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Crikey that sounds like a bad shoot with a lazy gamekeeper who does not feed his birds properly, allowing his birds to get wormy and allowing dogs that chase and kill on the shoot. I suppose it can easily happen on the big shoots that take anybody "for a days pheasant shooting" and let them take unknown dogs. We were members of a small shoot that allowed so many guests a year, usually friends of members , so all dogs were known and so were the guns. All were well trained to lay down when a bird was flushed and to retrieve without damaging the bird , even if the bird was still alive it was brought back for dispatch by the owner. Our birds were fed medicated food which included wormer and we had high quality birds that the butchers and restaraunts loved. They obviously did not run the shoot on quality and pheasant sales more on amount of guns through the door I guess.
The only neighbour that we had problems with was a lady who fed foxes on the shoot land! She was asked politely many times to stop but wouldnt, in the end the local gamekeepers got together and shot seventeen around her cottage area. Pheasants are or were big money and the gamekeepers look after them like spoilt children, it is a shame to hear of a shoot that does not care about its stock. Hope yours is a small shoot Toyboy.
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I meant to say all DOGS would lay down when a bird was flushed, it sounds like I meant all the guns as well and that would be just silly. Must preview posts!!!! ::)
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Yes, they SHOULD. My father has trained gundogs to field trial standard both for himself and other people. I know that a lot of dogs are well trained and very obedient. I have a flat coated retriever .....trained to a decent standard ...though I wouldnt work him on game. Not all are trained so well and yes I guess it depends on the guns and pickers up. The gamekeeper himself told me that some of the guns thought that the finches etc in the cover crop were phessies and were about to shoot them!! They come from all over the world apparently. So although my post may seem a little negative, I am not saying that all dogs behave like that or all shoots etc.... just giving my experience of what happens here. Not in the gamekeepers interest to tell me these things so I suppose they must at least be true in part.
Oh dear ....I hope I dont sound too unreasonable ...Im not really. ;D ;D ;D
And yes, they do keep down the foxes ........or do they encourage high numbers with so many phessies available for lunch ........oh, suppose its swings and round abouts!!!! ;D ;D ;D
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Thanks to all.
This has put my mind at ease,the shoots generally happen all around but with only one close by. My main concern was that someone would comment that my hens would pass on diseases?
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It is informative to learn the good and the bad about things, then people can make a proper decision.
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All I can say about living next to a shoot area is that the buggers will find all ways to eat your hens food, but that does make them 'sitting ducks' so we regularly eat pheasant! :P ;D (I am taking 'Danny Champion of the world' as my guide - if they are on my land they are mine (so I can shoot/neck them) - is that true????)
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Ha ha :D
Never done the deed myself but an old fellow paid me a visit once who used to live up here and he said ....Youd never ought to buy meat up here.....
Its true there are so many of them and yes they eat all the hens food.
If a bird is shot and it lands on your property then I think it is legally yours ......I mean if you werent the one that shot it but someone on the shoot. And I think that game that is not contained belongs to no one officially. Not sure if that means you can kill it when on your land or not.
There are so many that you can hardly drive down the lane in autumn. Delivery men cant believe it.
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This is interesting as I also live in a rented estate property and the shoot is all around us, as are the pheasants and the foxes! Many many many! I have been informed (on good information) that they cannot shoot over the house here anymore (I think that caused a little concern one year). We have various big boxes in fields filled with grain round here for the pheasants, I thought that was pretty normal. Not sure how you could feed what are effectively wild birds with medicated food for worming ??? I will also be keeping my hens in a run and was recently told down the local that the dogs do get in the garden on shoots - but i just got my energizer through the mail today so if they do, they are gonna get a bit of a shock ;)
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Hi Smalltime,
My propery is owned and not rented so they cant actually shoot on my ground but do shoot in the fields around me. One of my neighbours in a rented estate property has to let them park on her drive. She says that they show no respect at all and although they should be in the field next to her property when shooting have sometimes stood on her front lawn ...... the keeper did spot them luckily and call them off. They swing the guns around to follow birds and actually shoot over her property. They were laughing that a bird nearly hit her kitchen window. She was not amused!!! For one reason and another she feels that she cant complain too much ...... in case she is asked to leave.
They feed the birds from giant food hoppers,here. Like the ones for chickens. Maybe they put medicated feed in these ....dont know about that one. I ll ask when I get the chance.
The dogs do get in ....after runners ....wounded birds. Some wouldnt hurt or bother with hens, some would but guess they would scare them anyway.
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I read that Pheasants carry some real nasties in their gut. Their poo, if injested, can be fatal to chickens. I have therefore immediately shot any that strayed into the garden. They provided nice Sunday dinners. I have never found one with an owners tag on it.
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My money is on the Chickens :chook: ;D
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We used to use automatic hoppers with just grain when the pheasant were out along with the gamekeepers feeding this kept most( hopefully) of the pheasant around. It would not be medicated then, as they were for food and did not last long then anyway.( Again hopefully) . We must have had a good shoot, which sounds like an exception reading this as the gamekeeper was very good and literally ran the shoot and anyone who showed disrespect( which included laughing at a kill, that would have got him mad!) would have been severely told to not come back. He was well known in the area for helping many folk out , feeding chooks for old ladies that could not do for themselves , taking his ladies wood etc etc. He is still going strong at 85 , my OH has just been back to Yorkshire to stay with him and help him out on the land. Still tough as old boots and I never could tell a word he said :)
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I suppose Hermit that it is very much down to individuals, like everything in life.
There is also a small shoot run locally to me and I have heard that the gamekeeper is very polite and respectful of neighbours eg. asking if they wish to be informed of when shooting is to happen and so on.
The big shoot, as it were, involves two huge estates and employs many keepers. It is very much a business! Obviously it provides employment in a very rural area and is important to the local economy. However I have heard of many complaints from local people eg. damage to cars being hit by pheasants, pheasants fed literally on the side of the lane encouraging them onto the road .....
Out of interest ........ when would the pheasants on your shoot have been given medication for worms ?
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When are wild pheasants, ducks, geese, rooks, crows blackbirds given worm treatment? As long as you worm your poultry occasionally I don't see a need to worry.
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It is in the rearing of the pheasants that they were given special food as there are thousands of them all together on the pheasant farms. We bought them from a pheasant farm ( owned by the gamekeepers nephew) more or less ready for release, estates may rear their own. But as I said before this was many years ago, rules and regs may have changed ten times since then knowing Europe.
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The pheasants arrive as poults from a rearing farm, are released into very big pens ,half an acre up to five acres and fed pellets some are medicated, water and dust bath areas, all pens have trees of all sizes for roosting and shelter. Panacur is mixed with cooking oil and the feed pellets are coated in this mixture to worm all the poults. The pen gates are opened and the feeders moved to lure the birds to woodland and wheat is slowly introduced as the final feed. Two people on the estate keep chickens , worms or pheasants eating chicken feed is not a problem as the feed areas are far enough away