Getting enough rest/sleep/time off in the fieldsports industry

[foxdropper]

Even as a beat keeper ,we were given in excess of 4 grand for the season cash tips and that’s without loading days .My weekly wage was 170 notes lol.No house but dog food ,carts and contribution towards house bills .Complicated but no house available and me travelling 60 miles round trip every day with no fuel money
Deer sales to market and vermin skins back then covered that though .

 

[foxdropper]

Sure it's nice to have income that VAT man's greasy fingers can't touch, but I suspect most didn't get much in the way of tips from international guests with CV19's impact?

'Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir!' is exactly the mentality which sees grown men grovelling for tips.

I don't feel the need to do that in any shape or form.

Nor should you need to .Other ways to deal with poor payers than grovelling like putting them back gun ,back by the motorway where no bird dares .
Ive seen some truly comical goings on with tips from pound coins to envelopes and everything in between .
Employer should step in here and set the tips to avoid poor gun placement in the future

 

[bogtrotter]

Sure it's nice to have income that VAT man's greasy fingers can't touch, but I suspect most didn't get much in the way of tips from international guests with CV19's impact?

'Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir!' is exactly the mentality which sees grown men grovelling for tips.

I don't feel the need to do that in any shape or form.

@bogtrotter , maybe you have had good luck in the industry or I've just had terrible luck, but I know of a few factors/estate managers who seemed to delight in running their employees into the ground on bare bones pay. I experienced this myself.

No surprise that no one stays at those places for long (except the factor of course!), and the excuse 'they could not take the work' is always given to the owner. Not sure how that can be true when you look at the careers that some of those ex-employees have gone on to have, but the line of people naively taking a job there never seems to stop. They advertise nearly every year but the name of the estate is no longer as prominent in the ad (if even mentioned) as I suspect word has spread...


Keep that in mind if you lose your job



Less so about regular hours, more so about fair compensation for time worked.

If you can afford to own an estate, you can afford to pay your employees properly.

If you can't do that, or think estates should not be run at a profit and not a break even/ slight loss, best get it sold.



Aye, but saying "Oh, it comes with the job and they knew full well what they were getting into when they signed up" to the friends/family members/collegues attending a funeral is not the done thing, is it? No matter what industry/line of work they were in...

Personally don't see commercially reared/farmed game birds continuing in the UK for much beyond the 2020's, like it or not. The driven grouse moors have the conservation angle to play, which is very much valid, but I suspect something along the lines of a large increase in sporting rates for land use is going to be implemented in Scotland.

On the other hand, if you are in the right place (Scotland) at the right time, have all the gear/tickets and know the right people, you can run deer contracts from September till the end of March, leaving you time to do whatever work comes between then.

I know a guy who does exactly that, now drives machines during that 'off time' between contracts, who used to be a keeper. What he said to me was: 'Why should I be a glorified chicken farmer for more than half a year (phesants) and rely on tips from guests to cover my expenses when I can earn twice or even thrice as much doing what I do now, see my friends and family, and have more shooting than I could possibly want?!'

I firmly believe that a professional should be paid as one, and some of the wages in the fieldsports industry are already horrific before you look at the hours worked. Yes, the old provision of a house and vehicle, dog+fuel allowance might have meant a reasonable and maybe even a good living a few decades ago when the economy was different (think a few pence for a loaf of bread and under a pound for a pint of beer) but expecting someone to live off less than £30k a year (I don't know any keeper/stalker who gets that!) and run a house, car, provide for a family and their needs, yet somehow have savings, is absurd.

The deer industry in Scotland is going from private estate to privatised contracts with the government/NGO's, yet the future is currently bright, if only due to a spotlight being used things might go a bit darker with night vision and thermal coming in...

 

[JTO]

A very valid topic for discussion.
Same problem exists in the farming industry. I can't ever remember working as little as 48 hours per week. Lambing time it might run up to 140 hours a week, albeit for a limited period.
The death rate amongst farmers and farm workers is truly shocking, both from accidents and from suicide. Exhaustion kills, one way or the other.

A few years ago, a study found that the highest suicide rate was amongst farmers who had employees. The lowest suicide rate was amongst farmers who didn't employ anyone.

 

[JTO]

I generally go of how I'm feeling, I know when I've had enough so feel no shame in having a sleep in the middle of the day otherwise

People who have studied animal behavior, reckon we should be sleeping twice during the 24 hours. Get up early and do some work, have a snooze after lunch and then do some more work. It works for people in hot countries, I believe, and it works for people who milk cows.
Nowadays, people are drinking caffeine to stay awake all day and then whisky to get to sleep.

 

[JTO]

Ive seen some truly comical goings on with tips from pound coins to envelopes and everything in between .

Tommy Cooper is supposed to have handed a keeper something that felt soft saying 'Have a drink on me'. the keeper slipped it into his pocket without looking, as normal, and later found he had been given a teabag.

 

[bogtrotter]

@bogtrotter , maybe you have had good luck in the industry or I've just had terrible luck, but I know of a few factors/estate managers who seemed to delight in running their employees into the ground on bare bones pay. I experienced this myself.

No surprise that no one stays at those places for long (except the factor of course!), and the excuse 'they could not take the work' is always given to the owner. Not sure how that can be true when you look at the careers that some of those ex-employees have gone on to have, but the line of people naively taking a job there never seems to stop. They advertise nearly every year but the name of the estate is no longer as prominent in the ad (if even mentioned) as I suspect word has spread...


Keep that in mind if you lose your job



Less so about regular hours, more so about fair compensation for time worked.

If you can afford to own an estate, you can afford to pay your employees properly.

If you can't do that, or think estates should not be run at a profit and not a break even/ slight loss, best get it sold.



Aye, but saying "Oh, it comes with the job and they knew full well what they were getting into when they signed up" to the friends/family members/collegues attending a funeral is not the done thing, is it? No matter what industry/line of work they were in...

Personally don't see commercially reared/farmed game birds continuing in the UK for much beyond the 2020's, like it or not. The driven grouse moors have the conservation angle to play, which is very much valid, but I suspect something along the lines of a large increase in sporting rates for land use is going to be implemented in Scotland.

On the other hand, if you are in the right place (Scotland) at the right time, have all the gear/tickets and know the right people, you can run deer contracts from September till the end of March, leaving you time to do whatever work comes between then.

I know a guy who does exactly that, now drives machines during that 'off time' between contracts, who used to be a keeper. What he said to me was: 'Why should I be a glorified chicken farmer for more than half a year (phesants) and rely on tips from guests to cover my expenses when I can earn twice or even thrice as much doing what I do now, see my friends and family, and have more shooting than I could possibly want?!'

I firmly believe that a professional should be paid as one, and some of the wages in the fieldsports industry are already horrific before you look at the hours worked. Yes, the old provision of a house and vehicle, dog+fuel allowance might have meant a reasonable and maybe even a good living a few decades ago when the economy was different (think a few pence for a loaf of bread and under a pound for a pint of beer) but expecting someone to live off less than £30k a year (I don't know any keeper/stalker who gets that!) and run a house, car, provide for a family and their needs, yet somehow have savings, is absurd.

The deer industry in Scotland is going from private estate to privatised contracts with the government/NGO's, yet the future is currently bright, if only due to a spotlight being used things might go a bit darker with night vision and thermal coming in...

It's true I have been lucky in my career always had good employers that's not to say it's all been plain saling I have suffered redundancy and other mishaps but that's no different from any other job.
Yes there are bad estates but if you have been in the industry for any length of time you get to know the ones to avoid.
and on these estates employees come and go with regular monotony, partly due to estate conditions but also partly due to the employees, estates with poor reputations as a rule get poor staff only thosr who are desperate tend to apply fot
those jobs maybe because they have lost the job they are in or often because they are keen to get into the industry but are short on experience often they will get a start on these estates don't last long either they manage to land a better
opportunity and move on, or get sickened and decide the industry is not for them.

Keepers/stalkers are usually paid agricultural wages or better many considerably better when you take perks into
consideration.
Wages might not be so great if you equate it to an hourly rate but as has been already discussed a keepers or stalkers
Job can never be thought of in terms of working hours that is just not practical.
You mention 30k as a figure there are a hell of a lot of people not earning 30k and don't have the lerks a keeper has.
As an example my Grandson is a keeper on a Grouse Moor his salary at the present time is around 27k per annum with
a yearly increase , he has a good moderinised house rent free all repairs and maintainece are taken care of by his em
loyer, on initially moving into the house his employer carpeted the house in carpets of my Grandsons choosing, if and when my Grandson decides to replace the carpets the replacements wil become his responsibility which is only right,his employer pays his community charge , he pays into a pension plan and what ever he pays in per month his employer equals it, he is supplied with a vehicle for his work it is not for his own use apart from in an dmergency for example in
winter living up a glen they can get quite a bit of snow and when coditions are not suitable for his car he can use the
estate vehicle.
He has central heating plus an open fire, oil for his heating is his responsibility, but he can cut as much logs on the estate as he wishes, telephone is paid by the estate both line rental and calls.
Dog allowance was a £100 per month may be more now.
Tips add considerably to his income and he gets a very generous Christmas bonus from his employer.
it would not be right to discuss these figures so I won't I will just say they are generous and leave it at that.
Don't think he is doing to badly ite not all the horror story you seem to be implying.

As to the demise of tradition estates and Scotlands future being bright I just can't
see it for me it's almost over and doesn't matter but I do worry about the future
in the industry for those like my Grandson. and for Field Sports in general in the
present political climate.

 

[bogtrotter]

Don't know how this post was attributed to me but addressed sme of the issues in another post.

 

[foxhunter]

27k plus house , vehicle and bills paid , sounds like a dream to me

 

[bogtrotter]

27k plus house , vehicle and bills paid , sounds like a dream to me

When he was six he wanted my job asked if he could have it when I died.lol
Things have come full circle he is now twenty eight and I want his.

 

[VSS]

A few years ago, a study found that the highest suicide rate was amongst farmers who had employees. The lowest suicide rate was amongst farmers who didn't employ anyone.

I guess that the ones who didn't employ anyone simply died of exhaustion instead.

 

[JTO]

27k plus house , vehicle and bills paid , sounds like a dream to me

Some will even have a retirement home provided by their employer.
Security is the problem on the minds of people in 'tied cottages', but if they buy a house somewhere else, they can have all the tax exemptions that a homeowner has, even though someone rents it off them.. No Capital Gains Tax if they sell it for example. Not sure how much mortgage interest can be charged against income nowadays!

 

[Pedro]

For sure gamekeeping is a job that keeps you in relative poverty and doesn't bode well come retirement. Having to work until 66 at the moment if you can to get the state pension, which you can live on so long as you like beans on toast.

But what's the answer? If you double the number of gamekeepers to (theoretically) halve their hours, that adds considerably to the expenses of shoots and makes them uneconomical. Or you can pay them more, but that has the same effect. Gamekeeping is a job that is a leftover from the financial circumstances of 150 years ago, when labour was dirt cheap. The answer is that there is no answer.

As for farmers, the acreage of land required to give a decent income for a family is growing by the year. With that extended workplace comes extended hours. It's hard to see an answer here too. Diversification can help, but having glamping pods, making ice cream, having a farm shop or a petting animals area on every single farm wouldn't work! I know farmers club together and share such things as harvesting machinery and do help each other, but the amount of work still remains. I spent most of my working life as an employee and I hated being told what to do by people who don't know themselves what to do. I felt constricted. But the up-side is that you have a (hopefully) secure job and some sort of pension. I see that the government is considering giving retiring farmers a lump sum in an effort to get the average age of farmers down. Which might help, depending on the figures of course.

 

[mudman]

A lot of the extra hours, the ones which really drain the batteries, are spent out lamping. Two thoughts of mine….is it really necessary to get every last fox on a reared bird shoot, to go out yet again because there was an eye flash on the boundary the night before ? And if intensive fox control is an absolute must, why not get a trusted individual or two to do it for you? one way or another tiredness is a killer.

 

[User00040]

As an example my Grandson is a keeper on a Grouse Moor his salary at the present time is around 27k per annum with
a yearly increase , he has a good moderinised house rent free all repairs and maintainece are taken care of by his em
loyer, on initially moving into the house his employer carpeted the house in carpets of my Grandsons choosing, if and when my Grandson decides to replace the carpets the replacements wil become his responsibility which is only right,his employer pays his community charge , he pays into a pension plan and what ever he pays in per month his employer equals it, he is supplied with a vehicle for his work it is not for his own use apart from in an dmergency for example in
winter living up a glen they can get quite a bit of snow and when coditions are not suitable for his car he can use the
estate vehicle.
He has central heating plus an open fire, oil for his heating is his responsibility, but he can cut as much logs on the estate as he wishes, telephone is paid by the estate both line rental and calls.
Dog allowance was a £100 per month may be more now.
Tips add considerably to his income and he gets a very generous Christmas bonus from his employer.
it would not be right to discuss these figures so I won't I will just say they are generous and leave it at that.
Don't think he is doing to badly ite not all the horror story you seem to be implying.

Your grandson is a very lucky man @bogtrotter , I've not heard of terms that good anywhere else.

 

[bogtrotter]

Your grandson is a very lucky man @bogtrotter , I've not heard of terms that good anywhere else.

He is indeed a lucky man, there are other estates probably equally as good but there is no doubt the one he is on. Is
among the top ones in the country.