Disgusting

[welshwarrior]

If not seen or heard first hand of any shoot burying or burning birds and I go to a few up and down the country lots commercial affairs with clients.  

Now I fail to see how a big comerical out fit that forecast accurately the number and frequency of birds to be shot well in advance can't and doesn't sort out a end state properly for the birds. 

A fair few are sending birds to to Beefys country side food charity with a donation as well. Which imho is a great cause and deserves our support. 

[Dekers]

As I said in my earlier post, why are so many blaming the guns?

Even if every gun took a brace or two there are still loads to deal with on all the shoots I attend!

The shoot/staff/beaters/etc should be able to deal with all the birds without digging holes or starting bonfires!

 

 

 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

14 hours ago, Hamster said:

The absolute least they can do is give them away and I refuse to believe local butchers can't be found to take them. A friend of mine shoots ducks this time of year and he kindly dropped me 3 brace of mallard and a brace of wigeon, free top notch food. 

And if a butcher can be found he will then have to find members of the public to buy them, I doubt any large shoot will have bought an incinerator without trying to find an outlet for the birds. Many Game Dealers do not want to take pheasant and certainly not hundreds at a time every week. If there is no market for the pheasants they will either be buried, dumped or incinerated.

[marsh man]

7 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

And if a butcher can be found he will then have to find members of the public to buy them, I doubt any large shoot will have bought an incinerator without trying to find an outlet for the birds. Many Game Dealers do not want to take pheasant and certainly not hundreds at a time every week. If there is no market for the pheasants they will either be buried, dumped or incinerated.

I agree with you as far as butchers are concerned , they have to sell meat to keep in business and every butcher in our area try and sell game , also the farmers market and the smaller super markets are all trying to find a buyer for game / wildfowl , due to competition they have to keep there prices in line with anyone else trying to sell the same product .

No body want a brace in feather from a butcher nowadays so it have got to be processed which cost time and money , if they put them on the counter at say £3 each and the shop on the other side of the road displays there game for £2 . 50 , who is going to sell the most ? , time they take any money to buy them , then processing , it doesn't leave much for a profit margin .

I know one large game dealer was selling a box of ten oven ready partridges for £20 ( £2 each ) and last season a butcher in N / Norfolk had a front window full of oven ready fresh Pheasants for £2 each or three for a fiver . so we can swing this thread from pillow to post and it would still end up where the supply is far greater than demand .

[TIGHTCHOKE]

MM a shoot I used to beat for would buy similar boxes of prepared partridge and would give a brace to every gun, much keener to take them as they were "oven ready"!

[scotslad]

10 hours ago, GingerCat said:

Just my 10 pence worth but to kill just for the sake of killing is simply slaughter which given the publics view of firearms and hunting in general I can' see it staying about much longer. One national paper picks up that an estate is incinerating birds rather than put them into the food chain... well can you imagine it  on a slow news day.

No doubt it will soon go the way of fox hunting and the like.  

Which will in turn make it easier to limit the reasons to posses firearms and shotguns and in time that too will be outlawed. 

We really don' help ourselves much. 

No we don't and putting a thread like this on doesn't help either. Esp on an open forum, anyone can see this

I agree with most views but this is the 4 th or 5th time a similar thread like this has ran since August. We're certainly making it as easy as possible for others not in the know ()tabloids) to catch on.

But I have to admit I've still never actually seen it or heard of it 1st hand

 

The thing u have to remember is for all game shooting is an old sport this commercial selling if days is relatively new (it certainly never existed 25yrs ago in my area) back then it was all land owner ran shoots inviting there mates every week, yes some shoot some large bags (400 or more) but usually just every week/fortnight, now many commecail shoots can be shooting 3,4 or even 6 days a week most weeks.

hey possibly have developed the sport to quick for the market, and also in my area many beaters shoot in small syndicats too so get plent of birds from the syndicates, I know of plenty of 30-50 bird syndicates that struggle to get rid of game at end of the day, sits not just the big boys

[wymberley]

14 hours ago, crazycooker said:

I picked up today as I am  a chef in my village pub I was told to take 10 brace of partridge and20 brace of pheasants and a haunch of venison for the next shoot stew . To say I don’t buy a drink for a fortnight  got a few in the wood then it happens again wooohooo

 

14 hours ago, ips said:

I brought two and a half brace home from my syndicate shoot today and two brace from the estate on Monday. Freezer is full despite the Mrs making a rather nice game terrine.

 

14 hours ago, Stonepark said:

It is not just an individual problem with numbers shot or shooting 25 yard pheasants with large shot resulting in bruised meat but a symptom of commercialism with a limited imperfect productwith a niche market.

With 8 guns, 20 beaters, you are only accounting for 28 brace (and likely to be the better looking birds), shoot previously relied on  game dealer taking the remaining 47 brace of which probably half are inedible/damaged.

Then there is the inceasingly tight rules on meat and game handling, requiring everything to be chilled and held below 7 degrees and if it goes above this temp or doesn't get there soon enough it is to be discarded.

Biggest market out there by volume for game is probably dog food but even that has to be produced to human quality control standards.

 

 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, Grandalf said:

Just delivered 16 brace around the village.   All FOC and it gets us a lot of good publicity.

One old boy has got quite a good business dressing the birds out too.

If we're talking pheasant, shouldn't some of the above numbers be 40, 56, 94 and 32 respectively?

[Dekers]

28 minutes ago, wymberley said:

 

 

 

If we're talking pheasant, shouldn't some of the above numbers be 40, 56, 94 and 32 respectively?

Ok, help me out, I always thought Pheasant was a Brace (traditionally 1male 1 female), that's what they are called on all my shoots, including arguably the most prestigious shoot in the country.

Have I missed something here or are you suggesting we don't count Pheasant in Brace?

Cheers

[ips]

we call em a brace on my shoots.

[mattyg1086]

I was saddened that one or  two guns took a brace and me, the keeper and his dad split the rest. Now it took me the rest of the afternoon almost to breast the partridge and the pigeon(which is my favourite) out  but it will save me a few quid over the week in food.  There are three shoots that have clubbed together and bought the incinerator because they shoot so many birds that even those who take them don't take them all.  My point is this if your not going to eat it my personal view is your only there for the killing which does not paint our sport in a good light if you do take a brace or two or even ten and there is still birds left at the end the why are they shooting so many it's not a competition in how many can you slaughter you are out for the day with like minded people working their dogs to provide good challenging game to shoot at and at the end of the day your have the food you have harvested completing the cycle.   It is just my opinion that it's wrong to shoot so many and not take them with you I am taking some into work to a Romanian colleague who is desperate for some wild meat that he used to have back home and I thint it's great to share with people you know and help to feed other families  it's the hunter gatherer in me I guess providing for the village??

[wymberley]

20 minutes ago, Dekers said:

Ok, help me out, I always thought Pheasant was a Brace (traditionally 1male 1 female), that's what they are called on all my shoots, including arguably the most prestigious shoot in the country.

Have I missed something here or are you suggesting we don't count Pheasant in Brace?

Cheers

Dekers,

As I've always understood it when it comes to pheasant, traditionally two as you describe it is a brace. However, unlike other birds -  partridge, grouse, etc - more than that are counted numerically.

[Mungler]

So, I always thought this Shooting estate with surplus birds that were being burnt / buries was scotch mist; however, during a recent discussion with someone else off here it turns out to be true.

So a couple of us arranged to fill a 4x4 up with whatever was going (200 birds in total at no charge apart from a bottle to he keeper) and we then bust the haul up between us (mainly partridge but a few pheasants and duck too).

Heres my effort:

https://imgur.com/gallery/O4LS2

The big partridge and pheasant pies at the back will do 4/5 people and my serving recommendation is chip shop chips, mushy peas, ketchup and lots of red wine.

It took a whole morning to do, but given that The Cook Shop sell similar pies at £15 a shot I’m feeling quite pleased with myself.

Indeed, I think the larger Shooting estates are missing a trick here. I would add that from what I’ve seen of the smaller Shooting syndicates there’s never any birds left over of which go to waste, so the issue is localised to one section of the Shooting community.

I’ll post photos of what the others in the group do - my trainee is quite the budding cook and I’m intrigued what he has lined up - he was going for partridge goujons and a hoi sin dipping sauce.

 

 

 

[Dekers]

6 minutes ago, wymberley said:

Dekers,

As I've always understood it when it comes to pheasant, traditionally two as you describe it is a brace. However, unlike other birds -  partridge, grouse, etc - more than that are counted numerically.

Not heard that before, cheers!

[scolopax]

I have always thought the Americans have got it right in many regards relating to wild game, the law in which it is illegal to waste game meat in a prime example, ( I would also be in favour of the law regarding artificial feeding of wildfowl).

 

would the demise of the big commercial shoots be such a bad thing, what are the pros and cons for such enterprises? .

[Dekers]

2 minutes ago, scolopax said:

 

 

would the demise of the big commercial shoots be such a bad thing, what are the pros and cons for such enterprises? .

The simple answer is yes, but that is the subject of another thread.

 

[benbaikal]

we went to one shoot when it came to lunch we were served chicken soup and you could see they were chicken bits from the supermarket .when i asked why not use the partridge from the shoot days the wife said her son and husband wouldnt prep the birds.most shoots just serve ready made rubbish from supermarkets .like mungler said they could batch cook pies /stews and freeze and use later on

[AYA117]

How as 'Sportsmen' can we ever defend such practices ? It is not the fault of the guns,the keeper,shoot owner etc. It is the fault of every member of the shooting day,anyone with any knowledge of shooting will know that no shoot can sell 2,500 birds or more a week ! It is very sad to see our beloved 'sport' slowly destroyed by those for who a profit is more important than ethics. 

 

Just realised we buy a days shooting in birds, a 200 bird day etc. and at the end of the day count them in brace !

[Mungler]

Indeed, if you just breast them (which is what I did) it’s a matter of seconds.

I genuinely don’t get why some pie maker isn’t sweeping in, cleaning up and making a killing.

Incidentally, and whilst I know I’m biased, my pies are the absolute best tasting.

[islandgun]

23 minutes ago, Mungler said:

So, I always thought this Shooting estate with surplus birds that were being burnt / buries was scotch mist; however, during a recent discussion with someone else off here it turns out to be true.

So a couple of us arranged to fill a 4x4 up with whatever was going (200 birds in total at no charge apart from a bottle to he keeper) and we then bust the haul up between us (mainly partridge but a few pheasants and duck too).

Heres my effort:

https://imgur.com/gallery/O4LS2

The big partridge and pheasant pies at the back will do 4/5 people and my serving recommendation is chip shop chips, mushy peas, ketchup and lots of red wine.

It took a whole morning to do, but given that The Cook Shop sell similar pies at £15 a shot I’m feeling quite pleased with myself.

Indeed, I think the larger Shooting estates are missing a trick here. I would add that from what I’ve seen of the smaller Shooting syndicates there’s never any birds left over of which go to waste, so the issue is localised to one section of the Shooting community.

I’ll post photos of what the others in the group do - my trainee is quite the budding cook and I’m intrigued what he has lined up - he was going for partridge goujons and a hoi sin dipping sauce.

 

 

 

 

Just now, Mungler said:

Indeed, if you just breast them (which is what I did) it’s a matter of seconds.

I genuinely don’t get why some pie maker isn’t sweeping in, cleaning up and making a killing.

Incidentally, and whilst I know I’m biased, my pies are the absolute best tasting.

Terrific pies Mungler, this is exactly what I have in mind, I have a small business supplying (mostly) wild food to holidaymakers, in the shape of  meals and pies and would relish the opportunity to include some game along with the rabbit, venison, and seafood.  Scotslad is looking into some contacts but distance may pose a problem (although not insurmountable) would be happy to pay a fair price,.....Anyone !! 

[bluesj]

I think if you could market pheasant as " free range wood chicken" it would probably sell.

It wasn't that many years ago that we would find a brace of pheasant or duck hanging on the back door every week.

I was never a fan of game until I started getting it for my self because I don't like it if hung too long, and that was the problem with those left at the door. I always cook of freeze anything the day I shoot it. 

[washerboy]

The place where I buy my raw dog food has fully feathered undressed pheasants sold as dog food, I’m sure she could take on large quantities and mince them as she does whole chicken 

[Walker570]

16 hours ago, islandgun said:

British Leyland

[ips]

37 minutes ago, benbaikal said:

we went to one shoot when it came to lunch we were served chicken soup and you could see they were chicken bits from the supermarket .when i asked why not use the partridge from the shoot days the wife said her son and husband wouldnt prep the birds.most shoots just serve ready made rubbish from supermarkets .like mungler said they could batch cook pies /stews and freeze and use later on

last week on the estate we had home made pheasant and partridge soup, it had other stuff in and was like a chicken soup but far superior. It was made by the caterers from last weeks birds.

I have just breasted out three pheasant from yesterday and have a brace still in the feather for my neighbour.

tomorrows brace is for my other neighbour as Mrs ips has just informed me our freezer is full.

[Stimo22]

When you beat several times a week it is not possible to take a brace every time. 

Surely it would be possible for Pigeon Watch to add  section on members profile to say if people want to take game. Also the first two letters of postcode. If it was done so that members could filter a search so when we know that game will be available they can message others. 

This would be a real bonus for all concerned and a message that we are doing something about a problem. So come on pigeon watch

 

[GingerCat]

3 minutes ago, Stimo22 said:

When you beat several times a week it is not possible to take a brace every time. 

Surely it would be possible for Pigeon Watch to add  section on members profile to say if people want to take game. Also the first two letters of postcode. If it was done so that members could filter a search so when we know that game will be available they can message others. 

This would be a real bonus for all concerned and a message that we are doing something about a problem. So come on pigeon watch

 

What a good idea. 

 

Mungler  - excellent work with the pies.