Change of diet too early can set pheasants wandering
How long should you keep feeding pheasants on pellets? There is a fine balancing act to be achieved, particularly at £100 a tonne difference between pellets and wheat, writes Ivor Fox.
Move off the pellets too quickly and even older poults could start wandering, if they haven't acquired a taste for the grain. It is about the same as switching from Cinnamon Grahams to Weetabix. To the young palate the one has more appeal than the other.
On the other hand there is the opportunity to make significant savings. The note of caution comes here, though, if a bird is worth £35 it would only take three to drift and be lost to the shoot to make feeding pellets a bit longer economically viable.
The skill is to integrate the wheat gradually. Holding them with pellets is easier, but inevitably the switch needs to be made.
Partridge on the other hand are best kept on pellets right through. They seem to perform much better that way. However if you have several hundred partridge and several thousand pheasants, who could also be hoovering up the pellets, then there is likely to be an argument for accepting a compromise for the partridge.
There is something particularly special about a September morning, real change is in the air. The birds and berries are both colouring up nicely. Indeed as are the cover crops. My maize was sown three weeks after conventional dairy farmers, yet it seems to have caught up well, towering eight feet tall and cobbing up very nicely too.
The other thing that is filling up is the diary shoot dates. Those who didn't book at the end of last season, or before the summer recess, are now booking their days, so if you want to "select" your shoot date, now is the time. And without wishing to remind grandfather how to suck eggs, my brother says if you want to enjoy a good season with your own gun, best get your gun out and check it over now, rather than leave it to the first morning. Dogging in is beginning to put muscle back on the dogs after the summer rest. It is important that they are built up slowly for the forthcoming season and their diet increased accordingly.
Autumn anticipation burst into a bit of fun at the weekend, when I successfully ghillied a Shropshire McNab, comprising fallow deer, trout and duck all in one day, while realising £800 for a local charity, through a promise auction earlier this year.
* Ivor Fox is of Leaton Knolls and Gatten sporting shoots
