Where do you place your feeders

[rimfire4969]

At our shoot we all look after an area, when we shot yesterday i noticed some of the members had their feeders fairly close together, other people spread them around, some in the woods others in the rides, some in the hedges.

 

I have most of my feeders in a fairly open bit of wood and a couple in rides. It goes without saying that when we drive my bit of the shoot i want to see loads of birds so if you have a moment please give me your advise.

 

So the question is where do you put yours, have you found that the birds prefer an open area or in the wood?

 

Over to the PW keepers.

[ollie]

At our shoot we all look after an area, when we shot yesterday i noticed some of the members had their feeders fairly close together, other people spread them around, some in the woods others in the rides, some in the hedges.

 

I have most of my feeders in a fairly open bit of wood and a couple in rides. It goes without saying that when we drive my bit of the shoot i want to see loads of birds so if you have a moment please give me your advise.

 

So the question is where do you put yours, have you found that the birds prefer an open area or in the wood?

 

Over to the PW keepers.

 

Well there are a few thing to consider here. Firstly you breed or release the birds for sport; therefore you should place your feeders at points where you want the birds flushed so that it will provide sporting shots for the guns. For instance our shoot is beside the sea and the drives are on steep hillsides facing out into the sea; so we place our feeders near the top of the hills so that when the birds are flushed the can pick up speed and also be quite high.

 

Next thing is cover for you pheasants; you don't want your feeders to be out in the middle of a green field as this makes the birds very vulnerable to attack from BOP and other predators when they are feeding. Also we have lots of problems with crows visiting our feeders so we try and put the feeders out of sight to them.

 

Each individual shoot will have different factors to be considered when you are putting down the feeders.

[proTOM1]

Our feeders are well spaced out around the shoot with the shoot being mainly patridge ,so we have a few in the game strips to hold the main birds then feeders every 150 yards down hedges to help draw the birds back to the drives . In the woods we have a feeder it each end and 1 in the middle but we are not geared for pheasants really . We also have feeders in the middle of fields such as sugar beet as the birds love to use it as cover all this means is we cover more land on the shoot day to get the birds back to the cover and then drive to the guns

 

Like said each shoot will do things differently and if it works keep with the way you do it

Edited December 1, 2010 by proTOM1

[magman]

Some don't have feeders

[bolts]

I don't put my feeders out in the open, put them in the wood under trees or cover, also the more feeders the better, and hand spread a bit of food around the hoppers

[covey]

On our shoot which is mainly wood, chestnut coppice to mixed oak,ash,hornbeam we have opened up glades on the beating side of the flush points the feeders are in the glades and then the birds are slowly walked to the flush point.

I always keep a few small feeders dotted along the beat as the birds start to leave the pens and then withdraw these as the feeding glades fill up.

Always remember each year is different each years birds are different and so is our oh so wonderful weather so the key is to adapt as thigs change

[Alycidon]

I have well over 100 feeders out. In game plots these are normally on the edges to allow easy vehicle access to be re filled. I would typically have 6 x 45 gallon barrel feeders around a 1 acre game plot. In woodland we place in areas that are not to difficult to get at, dont want to be carrying wheat very far, they are always in small openings or rides. Having cover a few yards away makes birds feel safer from avian predators. Again we have between 6 and 8 feeders per piece of woodland usually.

 

A

[Quist]

I agree, bagging wheat and getting it out to the feeders is a chore and needs to be organised so that it doesn't take too much time up.

I like to see a feeder near every bit of cover so that birds have easy access to food and foxes don't just lay in wait around the release pen.

Our keeper this year only seems to feed the pens and numbers are well down on last year. In fact, if you draw peg seven, you might as well go home and hope to run one over in the lane!

[scolopax]

I took a couple of straw bales down to my wood after the first bit of snow, just cut the bands and put half a bucket of wheat on top, tried to rub the wheat into the straw best I could. Next day the bales were scratted apart, the fresh straw was like a magnet to them even though there were feeders very close by. We try to hand feed at least every other day, even if its just half a bucket onto the straw it certainly helps.