RELEASE TIME.

jimbrowning

my poults are about 8 weeks now, so i.ll soon be releasing them.
i,m goin to have 3 or 4 feeders dotted around on 30 acers.
i,m told that wheat is best for the feeders. can it be bought in small quantitys and where? how much will i exspect to pay 4 it. i.m releasing 17 birds. all advice welcom as always:D
thanks

cavan shooter

Jim
Once I get them out I feed rolled barley at about €10 for 40kgs. I start to ween them of the grower pellet and wheat onto the rolled barley, its more economic.

I use Aniseed oil; and on occassion I throw in handfulls of maize and "economy pigeon mix" around the place as well

The crows love it aswell

jimbrowning

cavan shooter wrote: »

Jim
Once I get them out I feed rolled barley at about €10 for 40kgs. I start to ween them of the grower pellet and wheat onto the rolled barley, its more economic.

I use Aniseed oil; and on occassion I throw in handfulls of maize and "economy pigeon mix" around the place as well

The crows love it aswell

where do you get your feed? i,m in cavan also.

Eddie B

jimbrowning wrote: »

my poults are about 8 weeks now, so i.ll soon be releasing them.
i,m goin to have 3 or 4 feeders dotted around on 30 acers.
i,m told that wheat is best for the feeders. can it be bought in small quantitys and where? how much will i exspect to pay 4 it. i.m releasing 17 birds. all advice welcom as always:D
thanks

Rolled barley is the job!
Is 8 weeks not a bit soon for releasing? We leave them in the pens till their well coloured!

jimbrowning

Eddie B wrote: »

Rolled barley is the job!
Is 8 weeks not a bit soon for releasing? We leave them in the pens till their well coloured!

this is my first time rearing pheasants. i thought that myself but was told 8 weeks.
how many weeks are they when you start to let yours out?

mallards

Do you just release them Jim or have some sort of release pen?

Mallards

jimbrowning

mallards wrote: »

Do you just release them Jim or have some sort of release pen?

Mallards

no, i have no pen. i kno its not the way to do it but i,m just trying it out this year. next year i,ll do it rite. how should i go about it?
i want to keep a few birds in the pen for next years eggs.

jap gt

i think if you have no release pen you should hold off releasing them for another few week, you will have a lot of loss in my opinion, barley should be available at any co-op

jimbrowning

whats the differance betwine rolled and flake barly?
thanks

mallards

I agree with Jap. I release ours when their head feathers start to green up. Which is about 16 weeks or so. I have these small pens for releasing young partridges. The might work for your pheasants if you have to move them from where they are now. With the partridges I just trickle a few out at a time. It may work for pheasants but not as well as they don't covey like the partridge but prefer to feck off!



Mallards

jap gt

mallards you seem to know a good bit about releasing, this year is the first year a club member raised pheasents for the club, but the club voted to release them the second week of october, a few of us were thinking the birds wont have much time to get wild on the ground, is it a good idea? birds will be 20odd weeks then

cavan shooter

hang on to the birds untill they are well capable to look after themselves, I got mine in June Ill release in bits and drabs from septmeber on as for rolled barley any CO-OP sells it.

mallards

jap gt wrote: »

mallards you seem to know a good bit about releasing, this year is the first year a club member raised pheasents for the club, but the club voted to release them the second week of october, a few of us were thinking the birds wont have much time to get wild on the ground, is it a good idea? birds will be 20odd weeks then

We have only a small shoot with about 80 pheasants and 100 partridges and have experimented every year in trying to hold birds. This is the first year we will repeat what we did the previous as it worked out pretty well. We rear our pheasants and partridges in two completely separate holding pens on the shoot. Both are closed pens and the partridges are in it from 8 weeks on. We then start to put them in groups of 8 or so into the release pens as shown above. We then trickle those out of the small pens 2 at a time once a week until they are all out. That seems to work well for us.
The pheasants are reared until around 16 weeks or so and taken in groups of 6 or 7 and quietly let out near feeders on different parts of the shoot. It's a bit labour intensive some times but we get modest returns and we do have truly wild birds on the shoot and you could not tell the difference after the released ones have been flushed by the dog once or twice.


Mallards

cavan shooter

mallards wrote: »

We have only a small shoot with about 80 pheasants and 100 partridges and have experimented every year in trying to hold birds. This is the first year we will repeat what we did the previous as it worked out pretty well. We rear our pheasants and partridges in two completely separate holding pens on the shoot. Both are closed pens and the partridges are in it from 8 weeks on. We then start to put them in groups of 8 or so into the release pens as shown above. We then trickle those out of the small pens 2 at a time once a week until they are all out. That seems to work well for us.
The pheasants are reared until around 16 weeks or so and taken in groups of 6 or 7 and quietly let out near feeders on different parts of the shoot. It's a bit labour intensive some times but we get modest returns and we do have truly wild birds on the shoot and you could not tell the difference after the released ones have been flushed by the dog once or twice.


Mallards

++! as Malards said above thats how I do it, its a balance between large bags and very good hunt onn wild birds. I for one go for the hunt I have no interest in large bags

jimbrowning

the feeder springs came in post today. got 5 for £12stg delivered.
just need some of them 30ltr barrels. any suggestions?

johngalway

You "might" get barrels at a local mart. There's a guy selling them out of a small truck at our local mart.

Dusty87

There is a fella who sells them blue barrels wil the sealed lids up the road from clara market every sunday. Have to pay him a visit myself. For such a popular barrel ya dont see them for sale in much places.

Tackleberrywho

http://www.volunteerdrum.com/

terminator2

what part of the country are you in

mairtd

Any redmills dealer can get you the feed wheat. Roughly 12 euo a bag. Its no harm to have one of the spring feeders in with th pheasnts before you let them off so that they know what they are and how to use them

jimbrowning

terminator2 wrote: »

what part of the country are you in

cavan

jimbrowning

mairtd wrote: »

Any redmills dealer can get you the feed wheat. Roughly 12 euo a bag. Its no harm to have one of the spring feeders in with th pheasnts before you let them off so that they know what they are and how to use them

yeah was thinkin that myself. what size a bag is that?

mairtd

25kg bags. It doesn't block up the springs and its very good for the birds