Pheasant pen size
- Thread starter ruger54
- Start date
It sounds about right. I think they recommend under 1000 birds per hectare of pen. I don't think this is a legal requirement, it's a guideline. In the past, I've had up to 1000 per acre and a bit of pen with excellent cover, without trouble - 850 would probably have been better, but we tend not to keep them in the pen for too long.
Release pens - Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust
www.gwct.org.uk
You'll be fine if you release them early. It's nerve racking!
Too many birds in a pen, there’s more risk of disease, although with a new pen maybe less of a risk. But you soon find it’ll look like The Somme, especially on clay type ground. You will also get more squabbling and tail feather plucking. And any small or ill poults easily fall foul to bullying. So basically it’s false economy. Whereas if you have a roomy pen, then next season when you want to increase the amount of birds put down due to your wonderfully successful gamekeepering, it’s easy. 
We are thinking of getting birds mid July and our lease agreement says birds must be released by end of August at the latest we plant all our pen with game cover have auto drinkers and feeders birds are checked twice a day but thinking of removing nets over the pens this year so they can come and go when they want
It used to be a yard of wire per bird, always worked fine.
What’s all this ‘we release the birds’ poults are put in the pen with one wing clipped, they soon regrow the flight feathers and self release, flying over the wire and returning through the pop holes.
If you can roofnet the pen I’m thinking it’s too small and you will lose poults tangled in the net.
Willowbank
What’s all this ‘we release the birds’ poults are put in the pen with one wing clipped, they soon regrow the flight feathers and self release, flying over the wire and returning through the pop holes.
If you can roofnet the pen I’m thinking it’s too small and you will lose poults tangled in the net.
Willowbank
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mine was 45x45m and 300 worked very well,
That's a strange rule of thumb and surely doesn't work because the area squares. For the sake of simplicity, assume the pen is square.
100 yards of wire, holds 100 birds in an area of 625sq. yards. 6.25 Sq yds per bird.
400 yards of wire = 400 birds. Area 10,000 Sq yds. 25 Square yds per bird.
1000yards of wire implies 62.5 sq yds per bird.
See the problem?
Can only tell you what I and many others have found to work over a very long time.
Last pen I built was an outlying one and exactly 100yd run of wire (4 rolls) 1” bottom and 2” top, 100 birds were released and they did very well, in fact they looked lost in the bramble etc.
Willowbank
Last pen I built was an outlying one and exactly 100yd run of wire (4 rolls) 1” bottom and 2” top, 100 birds were released and they did very well, in fact they looked lost in the bramble etc.
Willowbank
badbob
Well-Known Member
I would suggest 50 metres by 50 metres situated in a dry area with ground cover, small bushes and taller trees , some evergreens if possible. Any smaller pen or a pen lacking in cover will mean the birds will feel insecure and will easily fly out. This could hold 200 300 or even 400. The birds will trash the pen and eat every free shoot and leaf. Re entry holes on each side. Try and make it more circular with no corners. Double wire electric fence.
Andy seatrout
Well-Known Member
It comes for BASC I think, the view being that it’s easier to work out how much netting you used on the pen perimeter …… our pen is roughly 380m around - it’s not square and it’s not round, it weaves around trees etc, but suspect it’d be around 8,000m2…..
We put 450 in and the habitat in there is not too badly degraded by the time they’re out and about….we don’t net the top ( we couldn’t having mature trees in there) so we clip one wing and that hefts them well enough….
countrryboy
Well-Known Member
Wot willowbank said was always the general rule going back donkeys years, 1m per bird but i'm also sure once the pen got to a certain size the number changed ( as with longer perimeters the area will be far bigger, as ur sums showed, it might of went down to 0.5m per bird after X many meters? Vaguely familar )
But not looked up stuff like that for years, but sure it was semi official guidlines from someone GCWT or Basc.
Are harris fencing not an expensive and hard way to make a pen unless ur access is really good?
There bad enough to carry round building sites without trying to man handle them in around trees and vegetation and u sill have to rabbit net it anyway
remember this comment
Ps If u turned the harris panels upside down could u not leave the feet on as extra height for your top wire? Or even batter pieces of timber into the hollow holes/feet if u needed more height?
If I turned it upside down it would have needed a lot of bungs (90) for the open tops, any water which ran down will rot it from the inside out, this way I will use the off cut to make the top wire rail for the extra height needed...
Good point,
i never thought of that 
it was just the 1st thing that came to my mind to save u cutting all the bottoms off and rejoining them on the top.countrryboy
Well-Known Member
sorry u've lost me tim?
But surely the holes in the net are to big?
Every pen i've seen with harris fencing has been rabbit netted too.
Plus are they not about a tenner a panel 2nd hand even for ruff 1's
But surely the holes in the net are to big?
Every pen i've seen with harris fencing has been rabbit netted too.
Plus are they not about a tenner a panel 2nd hand even for ruff 1's
Phil fox man
Well-Known Member
I use herras panels. pre net each panel before use. it makes it dead easy to move pens if you get any problems and need to relocate! I also put gates in and Bob holes
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