Ex layers v poults

[Mr pigeon]

Hi people I am after advice please.

Myself and some mates have started a small shoot and built two pens. Pen 1 is 30m x 35m and pen 2 is 70m x 35m. In pen 1 we put 200 ex layers with wings clipped and in pen 2 we put 400 ex layers also clipped. They went in in the first week of June and due to horrendous weather unfortunately lost approx 120. However we have had three shoot days so far bagging 18,17 and 13. Shot ratio on average is 6:1. We have no shoots around us so the birds present are our own. We used ex layers to start as it was easier than poults as we spent a lot of time building pens feeders cover crop etc. what I am asking is our budget for birds is £1700 for the coming season, how would you split bird numbers in pens and ex layers or poults? Cheers any help would be appreciated.

[Blackpowder]

It will be interesting to see your returns at the end of the season. Over the years I have been a member of several syndicates who have tried ex-layers always with a distinct lack of success. The most recent attempt albeit more than ten years ago was 50 ex layers which we wing tagged and only ever recovered two tagged birds. That was once instance it may well be they hold on your ground but personally up here I would always go for 10 week poults. Pens certainly seem large enough for the birds you are putting down but it would depend upon their location on the shoot about how you would divide the numbers. Keep a log of where you shoot the most birds using that as a starting point on how to divide your stock.

 

 

Blackpowder

[Mr pigeon]

Hi black powder thanks for response. The farm we are on has a main road dividing it in two. Pen 1 on the smaller side approx 60-70acres mainly grass land with odd cover crop and pen 2 amongst 200 acres of asparagus. What time of year do u get 10 week poults?

 

Cheers

[Scully]

There are five of us in our little shoot,including the landowner,and as we all work full-time, none of us have the time to 'keeper full-time,so we built a pen about three years ago(extended it this year)and bought 75 ex-layers,specifying we wanted them unclipped.We were told they wouldn't fly,and if they did would fly off the land and we wouldn't see them again.We kept them in the pen for three/four weeks,then released them and they disappeared!As the shooting season came round they slowly re-appeared(obviously there all along,but hidden by cover in Summer)and as long as we kept the feeders topped up,they stayed.

To be honest they didn't fly too well the first couple of shoots,but got better as the season went on.

Last season we bought 125 and had returns of over 50%.

This June we bought 175 and have had three shoots so far this season,and have shot a 29,a 38 and a 37.They are flying very strong now.A neighbouring shoot rings all their birds,and so far we've shot 5 of theirs,so we're assuming the rest are ours.

We lost count of the amount of eggs we took from them earlier in the year,but landowners Mother who raises chickens,was trying to incubate some and things looked good 'til home-made incubator (old fridge) 'cooked' them!She managed to hatch and raise 11 from chicks,reared in the smaller pen with broodie hens.We have just bought a Brinsea incubator for next season when we intend to buy another 175/200 ex-layers.

When we went to pick them up in June,staff were busy crating 1500 ex-layers for a shoot in Wales,and a shoot local to me has a mixture of raised and ex-layers each season.

I don't think anyone would buy them if they were no good.We think they're well worth it,and fill our needs perfectly.We even saw some broods earlier in the year.

[Mr pigeon]

Cheers scully. We should of already seen better returns but 6:1 is I think slightly embarrassing :-) I was wondering if a poult costs £4 and an ex layer £2 am I better with twice as many ex layers to produce more sport/possible bigger bags or poults because they are more homely? Confusing!

[waterside]

Its worth asking your bird supplier what kind of ex layer they are.

Are they caught up birds which do like to wonder or

Are they polts that the game farm has kept back and brought on to use as this urs laying stock. We will only buy the kept back poults, feed and treat them like a poult and they will be there.

So far we are having excellent results, micro is something to watch out for and can become expensive vet wise

[al4x]

Tell us a bit more about how much woodland you have etc, cover crops are fine but you do need decent woods to hold many birds. My initial thoughts are you are bunging a lot of birds on not a lot of land, if you picked 120 dead then it may be you didn't find a lot. When they are in pens were they on pellets and were there any medicated ones used?

 

It may be worth stepping the scale down a bit next year buying poults making sure you don't have too high a density in the pens and getting the food right before going to this scale. We have a small shoot and this is the first year we have taken it on from the syndicate that used to run it, the basics were we wanted it to be easy to run, relatively cheap and see how it went. So we put down 200 pheasants and 75 partridges and have made sure feeders always have food in water is always about and the vermin is kept down. The aim is 4 days and if enough birds are about some walked up days, first day was 45 and the second 63 mostly pheasants but we have shot 18 partridges. Ok we do gain from some shoots locally but the returns will be good. We have one large pen approx half an acre so it stays clean and the woods we are continually improving to encourage cover. It isn't an easy game especially this year but look at your poult density in pens and look at your woodland for possible answers to your current problems

[Blackbart]

We tried ex layers a couple of year ago and the returns were not very good.They did ok in the pens but when released a lot just seemed to vanish.They are cheaper and easier to look after but in our case just didnt work out.As with any released bird there has to be the right "things" in place for them to hang around.So look at the basics first food water safety (somewhere to roost) if you are sure they are in place then start to look for other reasons they are not staying put.

[Bleeh]

I used to like throwing Ex-layers in with a bunch of poults, or in areas with a solid last-year population still remaining and they seemed to fair better. It might be a case with only Ex-layers you end up with a 'blind leading the blind' situation. Either way I always prepared from day old but I know that's impractical here.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Bleeh

[Mr pigeon]

Hi guys by pen 1 is approx 2acres of coppiced chestnut and mature beech/ oak. Very little else apart from odd big tree in hedge lines and Afew along the river, (all within 500yards of the pen). Pen 2 has a half acre marsh a one acre lake and two acres of black popular and willow wood again all within 500yards. My worries are that getting ex layers in June I have nothing crop wise to hold them until it grows up say August time. By getting poults I would be delaying there arrival to say end of July and this would give me 8 weeks more crop growing time. Really confused now!

[al4x]

End of July / august is when our poults turn up, part of the issue may be the woods if they are deciduous then they possibly are fairly cold as soon as the leaves are off. Might be part of the reason they aren't holding too well

[Mr pigeon]

Hi Alex if ur poults turn up end July ish how old r they and when r they out and about?

 

Cheers

[al4x]

From memory I think this lot were about 7 weeks old at delivery we then kept them in pretty much as long as possible, though we did have some hopping over the next day they were pushed back in each evening for a fortnight or so till they learnt to use the pop holes. We also kept the food in the pen for that period before starting to feed them out.

[Mr pigeon]

So Alex if u could have have say 500 ex layers or 250 poults which would u choose and why? Really in a quandary as we have been dealt a hand as by woods cover etc so just deciding which to go for and then I can fine tune to suit

[al4x]

I think a lot would depend on your ground ours were £1K for 200 pheasants and 75 partridges so you may not be looking as big a difference as you think but personally I would start with fewer birds you will find you get fewer disease issues that may mean saving on your budget bird wise. I'd put more against feed and feeders and have plenty and keep them filled up from before you put down birds till almost harvest the year after to hold as many left over birds as possible. Then look at your woods, look at what they are like to roost in and also at your covers, getting the birds and keeping them alive is the first bit getting them to hang about an entirely different matter.

[Mr pigeon]

Gonna have a look round with farmer tomorrow so will post again. Cheers

[Gamefarm]

Find a local, reputable Game farmer and ask for advice. Most of us will do our best to ensure customers get a satisfactory result from our birds, and if we are made aware that advice is welcome, then we give it. It is in our own interests to have happy customers!!

Ex layers are not the easiest things to get returns from on most shoots, but they do have a useful place in some situations. Put simply, you are buying fully developed birds with fully developed wandering instincts, turning them out in a place where they have no home ties, doing so a good month earlier than you would have poults in, thus having to hold them that much longer before you shoot, and all at a time when maximum disturbance from harvest etc is coupled with maximum cover and wild food availability. The average part time 'keeper is going to struggle to hold them against all that.

I find it alarming that 20% losses in adult birds were experienced - even given the awful weather. Well feathered, healthy ex layers should not die at that rate just because the weather is bad for a prolonged period.

[Blackpowder]

Hi black powder thanks for response. The farm we are on has a main road dividing it in two. Pen 1 on the smaller side approx 60-70acres mainly grass land with odd cover crop and pen 2 amongst 200 acres of asparagus. What time of year do u get 10 week poults?

 

Cheers

Late July or early august is our usual time.

 

Blackpowder

[Mr pigeon]

Cheers game farm. Losses where over both pens but mainly in the big pen. They seemed "hollow" if that makes sense?!?! I'm new to this and admittedly am running before walking. We still have 30-40 birds in the big pen that come back each evening. I really want value for money hence why I'm asking.

[Gamefarm]

'Hollow' - as in small hole under the tail and guts all missing?

[Mr pigeon]

Didn't notice small hole I meant that when I picked them up they were light in weight compared to dead shot birds. What are you thinking mate?

[Gamefarm]

Extremely common to find 'vent pecking' in penned birds that are over stressed or bored, made worse by wet weather/overcrowding/day without food.......almost anything can set it off. Simply put, birds will peck at each others vents until a piece of intestine end is exposed. This is then pulled out like a worm and eaten. results in death of pecked bird, with a hole under its tail big enough to get a finger into and no gut inside the abdomen. (hence light weight) Hard not to notice the hole though. I've seen it many times with birds kept in small pens, soon as the undergrowth is pecked down, they start on each other. Only cure is to get them out of the pens.

[Scully]

Hi guys by pen 1 is approx 2acres of coppiced chestnut and mature beech/ oak. Very little else apart from odd big tree in hedge lines and Afew along the river, (all within 500yards of the pen). Pen 2 has a half acre marsh a one acre lake and two acres of black popular and willow wood again all within 500yards. My worries are that getting ex layers in June I have nothing crop wise to hold them until it grows up say August time. By getting poults I would be delaying there arrival to say end of July and this would give me 8 weeks more crop growing time. Really confused now!

Pheasants enjoy sunshine,but nothing likes wind,so we created(and are still doing so)open spaces in our woods as nothing was growing at ground level due to the lack of light, by felling all those tall and spindly young Sycamore and Ash which grow straight up to reach the light,then bloom and block out all that light,and what isn't used for firewood is piled up into 'tepee' type heaps,the grass,nettles etc grows up through them all summer,and then dies but dies in place,amongst the piled up branches and creates marvellous wind-proof cover for pheasants.We pulled up some old and knackered hawthorn hedges the sheep had 'eaten out' and piled them around our flight pond;even the dogs struggle to get in amongst them now,but the birds love them.

Plenty of cover so birds can get out of the wind and rain,plenty of food,and even without roosting places,you'll still keep your birds.Some of ours still roost in the pen,but the vast majority roost across the river and in a small wood neither of which places are on our property,but all without fail,spend their waking hours on our land.

[Mr pigeon]

Is this in both ex layers aswell as poults mate ? Also as u seem very well informed as I posted earlier would u have 200 poults or 400 ex layers ? Any advice is really appreciated

[Scully]

We only have ex-layers on our rough shoot as raising poults is too labour intensive for us;we simply don't have the time to walk them in on a regular basis,but on the syndicate where we all chip in with the keepering,we buy poults only,and I can't say we do anything differently really.Habitat is similar;mixed woodland with some marshy bits,plenty of cover and well lit openings,and plenty of feeders.

The only differences I can think of is we get fully grown ex-layers before the end of June,and poults early August.We don't walk in ex-layers,once released they're on their own;poults are walked in each day.

If you can commit the time needed,then get poults;if it doesn't work out,then next season get a mixture.We are more than happy with our ex-layers,and so to answer your question we would undoubtedly choose the ex-layers.

If your shoot has the terrain to present birds the way you want them,then in my experience ex-layers do perform.