% FOR DIFFERENT SPECIES

[Mr pigeon]

Hi guys,

 

As the title suggests I was just wondering what are the "average" percentages or returns on:

 

Ex laying pheasants

Pheasants from poults

Ex laying partridges

Partridges from poults

Ducks

 

I'm wondering because I hear stories of reasonable percentages but these shoots have surrounding birds aswell. So I was wondering whats a realistic return for a DIY shoot with no surrounding shoots?

 

My syndicate is looking at returns so we can work out bird numbers for next year. What suits are ground etc.

 

Thanks in advance.

[sodylt1]

For the last 4 years we have put 1100 pheasant poults down in 3 pens over 250 acres and usually see a return between 43 to 48%. But to be honest we have found that increasing the numbers of birds doesn’t necessarily lead to better returns. In years gone by we had returns in excess of 50% with 750 birds in 2 pens.

 

This year has been particularly difficult due to large amount of natural food available so late in to the year, all the shoots in our area are struggling to hold birds so next year we will be concentrating on improving the infrastructure, thinning woods to encourage better ground cover, increasing the size and quality of game covers etc.

Edited December 8, 2013 by sodylt1

[scotslad]

Depends on so many factors. A good % return on 1 piece off ground may be a bad % on other ground

 

I think any diy shoot getting 30ish % is doing ok for pheasants, last few years we have been nearer to 40 witch i am pleased with. This year is looking to be a disaster probably scrape 30 if lucky, but quite a few members have been down throu aug and sept and seen how well the birds were holding but just decided to bog off late sept, very annoying but has happened to all our neighbours too.

But the main thing is all the guns are happy and enjoying it even thou not as many birds about as i hoped

 

I work out the number of birds shot by how much it cost to run the shoot, if its costing more than 25-35 quid a bird u have to ask if ur better of buying days, often if ur not making 30+% returns u would be better off forming a roving syndicate

 

If ur fairly small scale (or small sized) u probably will never get near the optimal stocking density, basically when u put more than the ideal number down ur % will start to fall again, so u may shoot less numbers than when releasing less birds

 

Personally i'd far rather have a shoot with no neighbours as it means ur hoppers are the only hoppers about so if ur birds want fed they have to hang about, this year esp with so much natural food the birds have wandered but they don't have to come back to our shoot as all our neighbours are feeding too, but by same token my neighbours birds don't have to go back either. I know 1 or 2 isolated shoots that often return into the 50's yea on year, 1 even just feeds barley to save money and still gets good returns.

 

Don't think the difference between poults and ex layers should be so noticable with partridge

[Mr pigeon]

Hi guys thanks for feed back. We are on 20% return so far and 4 days left to shoot. We put down 800 ex layers so I suppose that's good? Ducks are 35% and partridge poults 14%. Does that sound ok?

[tiny tim]

last few years we have shot over 35 % of the pheasants and 70 % of the ducks..we wont get this amount this year as numbers are down due to birds wandering but hopefully they will come back when the weather gets a bit harder

[scotslad]

The most important thing is u and rest of guns are happy and enjoying it!!

 

I wouldn't get to hung up on % but generally the higher ur % the happier most folk are

 

Sounds like ur doing ok anyway (better than us anyway but u get years like this sometimes ) hopefully ur %'s should go up over the next few years as u get to learn the ground a bit better and know where they like and where they wander from

[Mr pigeon]

Thanks scotslad. Yes only started last season and knew nothing then! Interesting you say about wandering points, some of our birds head out in the morning off our land for the day and come back in the evening. I've gone looking for them, ( with permission) and can't see them anywhere!

[scotslad]

Different on every shoot but quite often birds will follow a hedge/fence etc usually some physical feature and wander off, atleast ur's are coing back, more than our's are , Mibee i should be gettin advice off u.

 

If u have the time and can find wot there following/where there leaving, it might still be worth gettin there early a few mornings on the trot and give them a right hounding back onto ur shoot. Sometimes if u do it often enough esp when young poults they might stop headin that direction other times got to keep on them all year.

 

Doesn't matter how long u do it for, every day is still a school day! The longer u do it the more u will learn about ur shoot, then they cut some woods down/move a pen and u have to relearn it all