Help - shoot burning pheasants and feeding them to my pigs!!

[Tarw Coch]

I ran shoots for the oil companies before the tax man clamped down on tax relief for entertaining foreign nationals. None took their brace home with them as they'd p[rpbably flown in from the USA or Norway. I got to look like a bloddy pheasant with all the game stew I ate! It is not so easy even giving them away and it all takes time but none were buried or burnt. You can't force people to take them. They do need to get the disposal organised in advance so it is not a last minute problem.

Perhaps they should be forced to take them, you shot them you take them, if you don’t like it don’t shoot them.

 

[Cowcalf]

cannot really see the problem, pigs eat meat as part of diet, cows never did eat fish or beef

 

[Tarw Coch]

cannot really see the problem, pigs eat meat as part of diet, cows never did eat fish or beef

Surely you’re not saying you think it’s perfectly acceptable for a keeper to dump pheasants on someone else’s property and burn them.

 

[ollie989898]

I agree, reared birds are not as big as a natural wild birds, and yes they do fly faster. I am becoming nervous of this thread as as sure as eggs are eggs the anti shooting lobby will be able to pick out the pieces that would fuel their fire and be away to the newspapers once again scoring a few points.

Its an outrage and not a man jack on this forum thinks it is acceptable, just London money being sucked up as usual, these pricks should find another sport to play at instead of one that results in thousands of perfectly good birds being dumped. Of all the times I have shot, I would be content with 2 good birds shot and taken home, who the hell wants to shoot hundreds in a day?

If the sport can't sort it out itself then banned it should be. It is a disgrace.

 

[ajcc]

It’s a sport, people do it for pleasure and leisure. Same as hunting, Fieldsports.
Doubtless the OP has a local grievance but millions derive great pleasure from being outdoors participating at different levels.....commercialism corrupts all walks of life including sport at all levels but banning anything is not an answer.

 

[essexpete]

I bet they wouldn't accept them on. health and safety grounds food hygiene or because they wouldn't have a clue what to do with them

Unfortunately I think you are spot on there. Even issues with out of date food from supermarkets.

 

[spin cycle]

cannot really see the problem, pigs eat meat as part of diet, cows never did eat fish or beef

botulism?....plus burning in a bonfire is daft to put it mildly...charred carcasse must increase disease risk surely.....given the money generated by such shoots i reckon they could easily afford to have them disposed of via knackerman

oh and game birds are best carriers of bird flu (after waterfowl).....so scavanging birds would spread it readily if there was infection present

 

[michael N123]

On our shoot it’s juat made up of a few locals all farmers we split into 2 teams and take turns beating and shooting each drive It’s very much down to good luck I’ve gone some days where I havnt fired a shot and some days when I’ve fired 40 Most birds I’ve actually hit is just 7 lol

I don’t think I’d like to just stand on a peg and have 100+ Tame overfed pheasants fly over me

 

[JP1]

thousands and thousands of game birds are being shot and dumped every week of the season, the market is completely saturated . More game is being promoted on menus and in supermarkets which is great but consumption is no where near keeping up with the numbers shot per week.
Can anybody here make a constructive argument defending a 500 bird day’s shooting?
As a fox hunting person I would be the last person to kick up a fuss over someone else’s sport but the sh!t we hunters receiv3 on a weekly basis is going to be the shooting worlds problem if this sort of nonsense hits the press, it’s a matter of time imo

Hmm. Not that uncommon to have a 500 bird drive let alone day. Unnecessary and hardly sport

 

[Guiggs]

Regardless of people's opinions of the waste of all those pheasants or the bonfires on other people's land the bottom line is the op, as the person rearing those pigs, is the person that the authorities will be coming for if they should find out those pigs have been "fed" raw meat... they won't give a monkeys about the gamekeeper and what he's been up to unless they have solid, irrefutable evidence to prosecute him with... I'd be very careful how you deal with this/ him if I was you but he'd be well aware of the consequences if he was to do it again!

 

[Doing it for the kids]

Pheasants can't survive in the UK. If none were put down they would be all gone in a few years. I just think the breeding has made them smaller and faster and ultimately of less use meat wise.

What makes you think that? Corvid and fox’s \ badgers are their only real threat, much the same as most song and game birds?

 

[Grassman]

I'm not into killing for fun and entertainment. Bull fighting is disgusting. Better banned.
These big pheasant shoots are not much better. But if non of the Pheasant meat is wasted then I can just about accept it.

 

[davieh3350]

It’s a sport, people do it for pleasure and leisure. Same as hunting, Fieldsports.
Doubtless the OP has a local grievance but millions derive great pleasure from being outdoors participating at different levels.....commercialism corrupts all walks of life including sport at all levels but banning anything is not an answer.

How about... Instead of pheasants we use lambs? They can't fly, but if you used Hebridean Blackface cross lambs they would bolt like rabbits. Great sport!


raising thousands of birds just to blast out of the sky and dump is a crazy and pathetic way to go about hunting.

 

[Redfish]

I’m part of a small syndicate pheasant shoot and none of the birds shot is wasted. The bag is divided between everyone involved in the day and put to good use.

I don’t think shooting large bags can be defended but with the sort of costs attached to these days it wouldn’t seem unreasonable to add a processing fee, ( as described previously in this thread people don’t want to dress birds for the table) to be paid by the team of guns to ensure everything is used.

 

[Roy_H]

Is it my imagination or are modern pheasants also smaller and thinner? Maybe to promote higher, faster flying? Looking at some around here, they would be worth plucking unless had all the gear.

I was talking to a beater on one particular shoot and he was telling me that on shoot he beat for there were some pheasants that had been crossed with golden pheasants ( By design or accident l couldn't say) but he said " Nobody could hit the buggers they were just so fast!"

 

[Al R]

I was talking to a beater on one particular shoot and he was telling me that on shoot he beat for there were some pheasants that had been crossed with golden pheasants ( By design or accident l couldn't say) but he said " Nobody could hit the buggers they were just so fast!"

Actual proper golden pheasants that look like parrots or the blue Chinese that fly straight upwards for 60ft and then go like a rocket sidewards?
I’ve never shot proper golden pheasants but the blue backed Chinese pheasants are incredible fliers and are like high flying partridge with their speed.

 

[Dry Rot]

The root of the problem is the valuation of shooting...or 'sportings'as they are more correctly called. It is vaued on the number of birds shot, deer killed, and fish caught as I am sure many on here will know.

So if the landowner can let, say, a '500 bird day', the price is agreed on the expectation that the bag will be around 500, more or less, with a reasonably proficient team of guns. When the land is sold, the numbers in the game book will be totalled up and capitalised on so much per bird, stag, salmon, etc.

Yes, it is quite wrong. but that's the way it is. How else do you vaue "sport", especially if you are an accountant or a property agent who wouldn't know a pheasant from a turnip? Not sure how you'd value my fun chasing a pheasant with a hawk all afternoon, and not even catching it, but that's how sportings are valued! If they shoot more than they can dispose of, that's not something that will appear in the accounts.

(Wish we could shoot accountants, but there's bound to be some stupid law against it.).

 

[Princess Pooper]

There is a fair chance they are the birds that are not fit to go to the game dealer due to being shot to close?

in which case the guns need educating.

 

[faircomment]

in which case the guns need educating.

Some that hit trees on the way to the ground and get decappidayed, also plenty of very hard mouthed dogs around. Waste is just part of the process.

 

[Lazy Sod]

proper disposal is very easy surely.....fallen stock collector

Since there's a lot of money going into big shoots, it could easily be afforded.