Jump to content

Gutted dead birds


Recommended Posts

As Title says completely gutted checked one of the release pens today to find all 40 pheasants dead about half missing heads. Looks like a fox has managed to dig under electric fence and mesh, they didn't have a chance as the pen is netted due to marsh harrier and buzzards. This is really gutting as they were going to be released in the morning. Luckily we only had 40 in with the rest if our birds safe, but this is still a big loss as we only had 340 to start with. Still to late to get replacement's now will have to concentrate on what's left, will have to get a trap in the morning to see if I can catch it do you think baiting it with some of the dead birds is best?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very annoying. Our landowner suggested putting mesh over our pen to stop the birds getting out and the Buzzards/Owls getting in. We told him that to do that the pen would have to be bombproof, which ours isn't. There are some very determined Badgers out there. Thankfully he came round to our way of thinking.

Give Hy-Fly a bell, they may be able to help, but like you say, it's probably a bit late in the year now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the comments, I have set snares and will be out tonight with the rifle. Making a few calls today in hope of getting some replacements, but still really gutted have had these from day olds they were doing well he even got the white one so he will be fined when I catch him.

 

Disappointing for you. Your humour will help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As Title says completely gutted checked one of the release pens today to find all 40 pheasants dead about half missing heads. Looks like a fox has managed to dig under electric fence and mesh, they didn't have a chance as the pen is netted due to marsh harrier and buzzards. This is really gutting as they were going to be released in the morning. Luckily we only had 40 in with the rest if our birds safe, but this is still a big loss as we only had 340 to start with. Still to late to get replacement's now will have to concentrate on what's left, will have to get a trap in the morning to see if I can catch it do you think baiting it with some of the dead birds is best?

Thats hard at this time of year. Are you certain its Charlie? Locally to me a shoot with netted release pen lost all their birds under similair circumstances but they were blaming mink. Once had the same thing happen with a modest pen of 25 birds, fox cub was dead in the snare but the pheasants wiped out with bodies inside pen and heads outside, I still cant get my head around that one- unless there were two or more cubs.

 

Blackpowder

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We had a fox in one of our pens last season, about 120 birds in the pen the loss unfortunately kept mounting as we would discover dead birds buried either in the pen or not far from it. We had no mesh on top so hoped a lot of birds got out. At first we guessed about maybe 20 or 30 birds were dead and the rest around the wood, but after we had dogged in the small wood we had about 40 back in the pen.

 

We were lucky a large shoot near use had some late birds still in pens and we managed to buy another 90 birds for the shoot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...