shooting hen pheasants???

darrenon

Hi lads
can anyone clarify the rules on shooting hens???
I always thought it wrong to shoot them due to helping them breed an so the cocks can enjoy the time they have:D:D
but i see a lot of recipes for hens!!!
are these farmed birds or shot ????

thanks

ayapatrick

There protected or they were anyway. afaik Ireland is the only country in Europe that provides protection for the hen.

darrenon

thats what i thought
thanks
seems to be a loads of them around this year

EPointer=Birdss

Absolutely criminal to shoot a hen whether you a have a permit to or not!
Shooting yourself in the foot & the pocket! A healthy wild population is necessary to have a good range of healthy strong birds. Alot more intelligent & challenging to hunt as well!

homerhop

You can get a licence to shoot hens but you have to release birds to get this. 35% of the stock you release have to be hens. There is also a minimum amount you need to release before you will get the Licence.

bmcm71

Where I live a large shooting estate closeby release thousands of birds. They shoot cocks and hens but a lot of hens wind up all over the surrounding area. Word is that these stocked hens don't actually hatch any clutches and are of little or no use to the wild stock. Can anyone confirm this? Fierce annoying when you're trying to train a young dog, they get a great hunt and then up gets a hen.

will hourihan

reared hen pheasants on their first year of release if they survive generally fail to rear a clutch however its thought that they take the pressure of the wild hen making an easier target for the predator allowing a greater sucess for the native birds
i would be interested to know who issues permits to shoot hens in ireland

homerhop

will hourihan wrote: »

i would be interested to know who issues permits to shoot hens in ireland

Contact your local wildlife ranger, they are the ones who issue the licence.

doyle61

Word is that these stocked hens don't actually hatch any clutches

i heard something about this earlier this year and am going to bring it up for discussion in next gun club meeting. what i heard is that chicks hatched in an incubator wont sit on any eggs. they lay them alright but wont sit on them. i heard that a good clutching hen can be used to hatch the phesent eggs and these will then sit on their own eggs when released. im thinking of getting a few hatched next year like this to see what happens. also heard that any bird incubator hatched is a lot dumber than natural hatched

Dusty87

Im not sure about pheasants doyle but iv heard that said a lot about hens and ducks. I know it to be false though as iv had hens and ducks hatched from incubators that have gone on to clock and hatch there own young. Not sure are they any more stupid though. You could well be right about pheasants but defo not for all birds, which was told to me. They stil have that instinct.

homerhop

Have you ever wondered why the big shoots sell up what ever birds they can at the end of the season?
Reared hens wont sit on eggs, if they did those clubs putting in large stocks of birds would have to put in less and less as the each year.

Dusty87

homerhop wrote: »

Have you ever wondered why the big shoots sell up what ever birds they can at the end of the season?
Reared hens wont sit on eggs, if they did those clubs putting in large stocks of birds would have to put in less and less as the each year.

I wasn disagreeing with doyle at all. Your probably 100 per cent correct. I was just saying wit normal birds (hens and ducks) this is not the case. They wil stil sit if they want to. Maybe pheasants lose the 'wild' instincts in them if incubated therefore not sitting on eggs. Hens and ducks would be domesticated more so i suppose.

marlin vs

In Britain they shoot hens, a reason a game keeper gave me was that old barren hens will frighten young sitting hens of the nest and cause more harm than the're worth, the're not indiginous to our country, so why not shoot them and replace them.

deeksofdoom

EPointer=Birdss wrote: »

Absolutely criminal to shoot a hen whether you a have a permit to or not!

On a large shoot I don't see any problem shooting hens, but in the wild absolutely yes I totally agree with you.

I was told by a game keeper that pheasant chicks that are hatched and reared by bantams will act more like chickens than pheasants and I would say that the released farmed birds have less of a chance of rearing clutchs in the wild. Douglas Butlers Book Game Shooting in Ireland has some very good ideas on game rearing.

foxshooter243

The debate of wether or not to hunt hen pheasants always makes for two opposing camps, however the bottom line which is the crux of the matter is how supportive is the habitat that is being talked about.
Large Estates would run breeding programmes to artificially create a much higher than normal amount of birds in the spring and with some feeding and natures help these birds would be catered for over the summer months, however the habitat wouldnt normally sustain the large amount of birds over winter, but that didnt really matter because the population would be reduced by hunting, predation, disease and so forth.

A given habitat will only sustain a certain amount of birds, any surplus hens will only serve to produce surplus young in the spring and without mans intervention these will not survive anyway..I mean we dont hunt blackbirds but that hasnt created an abundance of blackbirds!
Large estates typical of the type that are seen in England will need to hunt hens if they estate were to be managed to make a profit,it makes more sense to turn them into money rather than suffer big losses in a habitat that cant sustain them over winter.

Another point I would raise is that we hunt both sexes in partridge, ducks geese etcetera and that hasnt given any great rise for concern, it seems to me that if we look after the habitat then nature will take care of the rest.

puheen

Excellent post foxshooter243 especially about looking after the habitat that is the key

homerhop

When you take into concideration that when you release birds as a rule of thumb anything over 40% shot is a bonus. At that rate the lands around the big estates that run driven shoots should be crawling with the excess of birds which in turn should be breeding and hatching but that is not what happens.

As you say Foxshooter there will always be those who are for and those against, personally I cant see the point in releasing birds that are not going to be any bonus to the club

foxshooter243

homerhop wrote: »

When you take into concideration that when you release birds as a rule of thumb anything over 40% shot is a bonus. At that rate the lands around the big estates that run driven shoots should be crawling with the excess of birds which in turn should be breeding and hatching but that is not what happens.

As you say Foxshooter there will always be those who are for and those against, personally I cant see the point in releasing birds that are not going to be any bonus to the club

I remember reading an interesting piece on pheasant release and some studies carried out in the states, it said that most birds were shot within ten days from the opening of the season, after that the birds got craftier and also hunting pressure waned somewhat as the season goes on.
An arguement that I would put forward is that if we put as much effort into improving habitat then pheasant stocking programmes which only produce tangible results at best for the effort taken, could be downscaled as nature will fill the vaccum.Then we could crop excess birds of both sexes as long as we leave a sustainable population..my euros worth:)

homerhop

Foxshooter the development of the set aside for farmers has greatly helped the pheasant population in areas that have not got good holding areas such as woodland.
I think there are many aspects which could help the bird population. The Nargc should be pushing clubs to develop feed crops and breeding programes.This thing of offering each club 10 birds in their grant scheme is as I see it a complete waste of resources.Clubs should be taking a look at themselves too. Have the provided suitable sanctuarys, its no harm to have an acre or two every couple of farms kept as a no shooting area. They also have to look at the bag limit they impose. I have seen in neighbouring clubs that have allowed a free for all, lads going out in one day and shooting as many possible birds as they can and come the end of Nov they are complaining about the lack of birds.

foxshooter243

homerhop wrote: »

Foxshooter the development of the set aside for farmers has greatly helped the pheasant population in areas that have not got good holding areas such as woodland.
I think there are many aspects which could help the bird population. The Nargc should be pushing clubs to develop feed crops and breeding programes.This thing of offering each club 10 birds in their grant scheme is as I see it a complete waste of resources.Clubs should be taking a look at themselves too. Have the provided suitable sanctuarys, its no harm to have an acre or two every couple of farms kept as a no shooting area. They also have to look at the bag limit they impose. I have seen in neighbouring clubs that have allowed a free for all, lads going out in one day and shooting as many possible birds as they can and come the end of Nov they are complaining about the lack of birds.

some good points there homerhop!...a good few years back a large farm in our area began to grow various veggies for Erin foods, they were also producing cereal crops,there was idle ground beside some fairly dense woodland which had plenty of briars and brambles to give some warmth and create a draught free wood-the following few years the population of wild birds exploded in the area-best shooting ive ever seen, though sadly it has declined now due to a change in the farming strategy- so it just goes to show what happens in a beneficial habitat.The traditional farming system of a farm having a balance of everything with proper hedgerows with some neighbouring warm woodland is ideal, but even in my club they release birds into areas where theres planted forestry which is cold and draughty with little or no feeding in the area and the birds just seem to evaporate..another point ill throw into the mix here is why dont NARGC put
more effort into wild duck , after all we got the weather and suitability for those

homerhop

A few years back they were offering a grant for the opening of ponds, but I had a conversation one night with one of the upper ranks who told me that it was being abused,that "lads were digging paddling pools in their back yard" and applying for it. Like everything in this country as soon as money is involved there are those who **** it up for those making a genuine effort.

foxshooter243

homerhop wrote: »

A few years back they were offering a grant for the opening of ponds, but I had a conversation one night with one of the upper ranks who told me that it was being abused,that "lads were digging paddling pools in their back yard" and applying for it. Like everything in this country as soon as money is involved there are those who **** it up for those making a genuine effort.

our club got a grant of 600 euro i think it was, and dug a pond on the hill on one of the lads ground, next morning there were two duck in it:D. it does really well , its now a sanctuary:)

EastTyrone

up here in the north, people i know would shoot hen pheasants but they are released burds, I've also heard that you shoud shoot 1 or 2 hen pheasants a year so there is less competition over nesting come the spring time.

mallards

For the past ten years I've released both cocks and hens in equal percentage. Our shoot covers a few farms but there are only two of us. We do as much predator control as we can during the spring, summer and autumn. We never shot hens but have only rarely seen young birds. Mostly because we rarely see hens in the spring. You might see a rooster here and there but they only have one, if any, hens with them. They seem to either leave the shoot or more likely get eaten during the winter.
With this in mind, we have decided to have an experiment this year. We have a very large pen that is covered over and we have kept back 20 hens and two cocks. The plan is to hold them back until next spring. When they start laying I will incubate the first clutches, they will be released to rear their own clutches.
We didn't see the sense in loosing all this sport and food to the fox when a little effort on our part might ensure more wild broods next year. So this season we will shoot both cocks and hens and see how the experiment fairs next spring.

Mallards

EPointer=Birdss

We experimented again this year in 2 laying runs. We had incubator hens in one run & bantam hen hatched hens from last year in another.
At the end of the summer, a hen in both sat on their eggs. The incubator birds sat for 2-3 weeks & came off them. The hatched bird hatched out 10 of 11 eggs. I have had them hatch out clutches but the exception rather then the rule.
As regards wildness, we hunt them as said before for a few weeks before the season. This combined with heavy vermin control, game crop planting & feeder hoppers gives the birds as good a chance as any. Like yourself Mallards we have a few man shoot so we can hatch enough under hens to have good sport for all. I have noticed a lot of hens around but when the winter foxes move in the weak ones will get picked off. We had loads of wild clutches hatched this year too which is great to see.
TBH I can see the arguement to shoot hens on estate as the volumes of birds released are huge but on ordinary club grounds I would not agree.
Each to there own...
As for ducks I always try to pick the drake but it's hard on flight ponds to tell the difference at times. We usually only shoot for 5 weeks & then the pheasants start. You might shoot an odd one during the season after that from a drain etc