BrowningB7 Posted May 15, 2018 Report Share Posted May 15, 2018 Does anyone have any experience in releasing ex-laying French partridge? Been offered some for mid July, we start shooting mid-end of October. We have never put down partridge on our pheasant shoot before but the ground has been holding a couple of nice coveys for the last 2/3 years. We want to try putting a few down, built a couple of pens and looking to put some poults down when we get the pheasants around august. I'm thinking of taking the offer of ex-layers first then releasing some poults later on. Any comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotslad Posted May 15, 2018 Report Share Posted May 15, 2018 Wot are ur oveys on ur ground the now?? Red or grey 1 thing i wouldn't release the poults/ex layers from the same pen even weeks later as ex layers will have different pararsites/diseases they're sort of immune too but a poult wouldn't be. Not hard to move a partridge pem thou. We tried ex layer greys a couple of seasons and found them to be terrible returns, compared to grey poults. I thought being in the roofed pen would help the ex layers and solve many of the problems assc with ex layer pheasants, kept them in slighlty longer but never even seen them again never mind shot any and in past always done well with the poults. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrowningB7 Posted May 16, 2018 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2018 We have had a few reds about over the years but these last two seasons we have had two good coveys of greys. Most shoot days they have been about, on at least one drive. Good point on the pen, wouldn't take much to move it down the cover crop after the adults birds have been released. I would have tried greys but read that getting them to take to your ground and their survival is a totally different ball game to reds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walker570 Posted May 16, 2018 Report Share Posted May 16, 2018 The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Partridge seem to be fickle as to what ground they like and I have never found out why. Never tried ex layers but have released poults with mixed success. One year they would stay another vanish. I've always said it would be a great experiment to make it a rule that every shoot that releases should release 50 greys for every thousand pheasants. It would be interesting to see if the grey population naturally inceased as a result. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotslad Posted May 17, 2018 Report Share Posted May 17, 2018 If u already have greys and they seem to breed/sustainable, ur probably better of not releasing any partridge reds or greys and just tryig to hammer vermin , feed throu spring and do as much habitat work as u can wether providing winter/spring cover or nesting/insect rich/brood rearing cover for the now. The GWCT have some info on greys and they're reintro or manageemnt. If u already have resident greys i would assume ur ground mus be ok for them. Walker it would be good in theory but probably not really work, if u alread have greys the worst thing u can do is releasing reared 1's, i think the problem is as with all reared birds they seem to be useless at hatching/fledging young. In the past 30yrs ago in this area if u released partridge it was only greys, but now reds are everywhere, for dog training/walking up the geys are a far better bird and tend to sit tighter and stay in there coveys more but also flush in 1 go Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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