release pens

wildfowler

has any body have any ideas on good release pens for pheasants

homerhop

How many phesants are you thinking of releasing?
When our club were rearing phesants we based out pen size roughly 1sq yard per bird.We had 2 pens each holding 600 birds.They was located in a spots that got good shelter from the wind but had good sunlight. Feeding troughs were places around the pen along with water troughs, as we progressed we were able to use water drip systems and spring feeders for the birds. A couple of tonne of sand was placed in various spots for the birds to fluff in.
The pen itself had a 2 rows of 1 inch mesh around the bottom, the lower one burried for 6 inches. Then a further layer of 2 inch mesh around the top. the pen was not covered because as the birds get older they will fly in and out of the pen, we found at an early stage that if the pen was covered and the birds gor spooked they ended up caught up in the roof mesh. The outside of the pen had 3 strands of electric fencing wire around it, this gave the birds some protection from vermin as they got in through shoots and also kept the vermin at bay.
Hope this is a start and would be glad to answer any further questions you may have.

EPointer=Birdss

I think homerhop has done a good job of explaining all there is to know.

One thing we always do is both hatch & release pheasants with a bantam hen. (release in release pens obviously) This was she will fly up on the trees in the centre of the pen at night & the chicks follow. Hence they learn to roost. Other wise they will prob sleep on the ground & when the start to move out they wont last very long! We also put them in it a 4-6 weeks. The longer you keep em in the breeding runs the more soft they get & aren't as hardy in the wild. They need to be out eating bugs & exposed to the elements to toughen up. Have tried it numerous ways & this has proven by far the most succesful.
If you can make you run bang in the middle of you club grounds do, otherwise they will move off & into neighbouring clubs. We made this mistake once also & we lost a lot of birds as we tag them & where told that over 20 birds with our tags were recorded as shot. Add to that victims of predatation & clever ones that lasted the season & we lost alot. I know for a fact that club doesn't work on vermin eiter so any hens that went that way are long gone also so the wild stock will be down also.

wildfowler

we had a open top pen last year . we wing cliped the birds when we put them in. but when they started roosting they started to drop down outside the pen. thats when the trouble started. they used to ly down outside the wire. we had 4 potholes around the pens. a fox had about 20 in 1 night. when they were older we found it very hard to get them to wonder from the pen. thinking about puting lots of small pens around the club and covering them. what do ye think

mallards

Some pictures of release pens I have used over the years.





Partridge pens




350 bird pheasant pen.





50 Bird pheasant pen and pop hole.

Mallards.

wildfowler

hi mallard are u part of gun club or syndicate

mallards

Ive been in a couple of gun clubs and syndicates of about thirty members each or so in my time. At the minute Im in a wildfowling club and my own gun club consisting of myself and my cousin. The AGM's are short and sweet with plenty of drink and few arguments!

Mallards

EPointer=Birdss

Hi Mallards,

Nice set ups.
Quick question.
How well do the partridges do out your way?
What kind of area do you need to release them for them to do well? (Dry, crops, etc)

wildfowler

nice way to have it . there is about 30 members in our club. 25 of them ar use less .do nothing and expect lots of birds to be there

mallards

I'm very lucky I have a great arrangement with the farmers bordering the family ground and a few bottles of whiskey at Christmas is all I need to have my very own shooting ground. As there is only the two of us, we run it as we want make changes when we want, hunt the bits we want and invite who we want. Only problem is its 100 miles up North of where Im working in Dublin!

EPointer=Birdss, the partridges do quite well. We have rough hilly pasture with wild unkept bits and bits of bogs and bracken areas. I'm sure its like most of the rest of Ireland. I find the reds spread out like the pheasants with similar returns. The greys stick to half a dozen fields. I like them as they are little hastle and its nice to get the variety when roughshooting. Best bit is the flavour, both are great tasting birds.

Mallards.

homerhop

wildfowler wrote: »

we had a open top pen last year . we wing cliped the birds when we put them in. but when they started roosting they started to drop down outside the pen. thats when the trouble started. they used to ly down outside the wire. we had 4 potholes around the pens. a fox had about 20 in 1 night. when they were older we found it very hard to get them to wonder from the pen. thinking about puting lots of small pens around the club and covering them. what do ye think

You got to hit the vermin hard before you put in the pens, and at that you got to stay keeping it up during the season. You are going to lose birds no matter what you do, and when our club started we got a profesional game keeper to talk us through out set up. His outlook was if at the end of the season you have shot 40% of what you release you have had a very good season.

wildfowler

homerhop wrote: »

You got to hit the vermin hard before you put in the pens, and at that you got to stay keeping it up during the season. You are going to lose birds no matter what you do, and when our club started we got a profesional game keeper to talk us through out set up. His outlook was if at the end of the season you have shot 40% of what you release you have had a very good season.

we shoot covers every sunday with hounds and lamp 3 times a week taken it in turns.all together in the club there was around 80 foxes shot last year and around the same the year before but there still a few around. since the frost for the last few weeks there travelling allover the country.do u know much about setting snares

homerhop

I have done a bit of snaring in my time.

wildfowler

i set some last year but no reward can u give me some tips

homerhop

were you using bought or home made snares? Make sure the pass you are setting them on is being used, a simple way of doing this is pull a bramble across the pass and checking it over a few days to see if foxes are leaving strands of hair on the thorns. Try set your snare preferably where the fox is passing through a hedge or fence. If snaring in woodland where foxes are using a run it might be worth your while fixing the snare to a long log so the fox will pull it off the pass but not far enough that you will lose it. Doing this will prevent the fox from opening up the pass when snared. This helps if it is a path used constant by more than one fox.
Setting the snare itself I kept it roughly the width of my hand up off the ground with a good 6" noose. I always set the snare where the fox would have to pass under a bough or fence. Try keep your handling of the snares to a minimum and where you are setting it as undisturbed as possible, this will keep your scent to a minimum.

gunnerwoodcock

We had open top pens for years but bthis year we are trying closed roof and tagging to see what our % returns will be we bought 200 poults

mallards

gunnerwoodcock wrote: »

We had open top pens for years but bthis year we are trying closed roof and tagging to see what our % returns will be we bought 200 poults

Same as me, we have had to go with closed pens to stop predation by birds of prey. Works out fine. Pheasants poults do well, birds of prey do well without them:-D

ace86

homerhop wrote: »

were you using bought or home made snares? Make sure the pass you are setting them on is being used, a simple way of doing this is pull a bramble across the pass and checking it over a few days to see if foxes are leaving strands of hair on the thorns. Try set your snare preferably where the fox is passing through a hedge or fence. If snaring in woodland where foxes are using a run it might be worth your while fixing the snare to a long log so the fox will pull it off the pass but not far enough that you will lose it. Doing this will prevent the fox from opening up the pass when snared. This helps if it is a path used constant by more than one fox.
Setting the snare itself I kept it roughly the width of my hand up off the ground with a good 6" noose. I always set the snare where the fox would have to pass under a bough or fence. Try keep your handling of the snares to a minimum and where you are setting it as undisturbed as possible, this will keep your scent to a minimum.

Disposable gloves will keep ur scent off it and when u get the snares cover them with hot water before u set them it might help as well.

mikeyboo

Were trying a pen to boost numbers in our club,and im thinking of a closed pen to get the numbers back quicker then we can do open top release pens,to see will that work out for us