Do any of you charge for pest control / stalking?

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SurreyHunter

Member
Done a bit of searching but didn't quite find what I was looking for..

Do any of you charge for your services (ignoring paid stalk days)? I've got 3 stables and a golf course that I look after. I've never charged money for petrol or ammunition, I'm in talks with a second golf course and they've asked my rate (in email). I've yet to go back to them because I don't know if I should charge.. I've been told before that by not charging people think you're just a casual stalker / pest controller (I generally try to stick to deer, rabbits and edible general licensed birds) which most of the time I am, but as I find that I now go out more and more the cost of fuel and ammo is getting expensive, I wonder if I should?

£35-40 a box of 20 centerfire
£10 a box for 50 rimfire
£10 a box for a tin of pellets
£7 (ish) a box of 25 cartridges
My Jeep now costs me £130 to fill on an empty tank

The costs certainly add up quickly these days.. Curious what others do to either be cost neutral or to make a little side money?

Thanks
SH
 
Magnificent 7 said:
Nope they’re good enough to let me go on that’s enough for me one farmer I chuck a few pounds too tbh but he lets me clear up his duck ponds towards the end of the season also
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In my head, if I can get say 1 deer to every now and again, that would do me as I can stick them in the freezer 😅.. same with any of the other edible species. I think until I've had the more detailed conversation and been on site it's hard to make any calls as if he wants me every night for several hours, my misses may even pay for me to be out..
 
I'm pretty sure basc is only recreational shooting but as self employed you can offset the costs of professional insurance and your ammo fuel etc.
 
Sealgair nam fiadh said:
I'm pretty sure basic is only recreational shooting but as self employed you can offset the costs of professional insurance and your ammo fuel etc.
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For sure, I used to run a limited company for a few contractors friends who we all joined forces to try and beat ir35 for a while, there are plenty of options to claw things back, but don't think I'm going to be doing anything like that this time around.. if anything it would be a self assessment jobby.
 
Yup, started my business 18 months ago, still not full time but getting on well now, started with the odd mole job etc and now have a few contracts etc for rodent control and cover most things, what you’ve described is “wildlife management” which is a small niche within pest control in general, I don’t do deer management on any large scale but have recently been controlling muntjac for a domestic property, still do recreational stalking on my perm but it has kind of ruined recreational rabbiting for me as I do lots for work, haven’t done any rabbiting for hobby in probably almost a year now
 
76thirty said:
Yup, started my business 18 months ago, still not full time but getting on well now, started with the odd mole job etc and now have a few contracts etc for rodent control and cover most things, what you’ve described is “wildlife management” which is a small niche within pest control in general, I don’t do deer management on any large scale but have recently been controlling muntjac for a domestic property, still do recreational stalking on my perm but it has kind of ruined recreational rabbiting for me as I do lots for work, haven’t done any rabbiting for hobby in probably almost a year now
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Are you happy to share your rates or give ball park numbers on how you decided what and how to charge?
 
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SurreyHunter said:
Are you happy to share your rates or give ball park numbers on how you decided what and how to charge?
Click to expand...
Most of it is working out what you need to charge like anything else, your hourly rate, fuel, consumables, insurance etc, moles vary around the country and are either per mole, no mole no fee, per visit etc, seems to be a very personal choice on that.

Some jobs I can roughly work out on the fly in my head others take time to price up, once you’ve done a variation of them you can see where you need to increase or vary etc and have a better idea going forward, prices vary a lot around the country.

Since I started I’ve been gradually buying kit I need, usually as and when I need it with the odd bigger order for stock etc at the start
 
This is something I’ve thought about more than once as my old boy used to do rabbits and moles etc when they used strychnine, cymag and phostoxin but when they brought new rules/regs and tests in he didn’t bother. I know a couple of people round me that do pest control but they say there’s no real money in it...or are they just playing at it do you think?

J
 
Are they asking you to do a job, do they require x amount of time spent there doing xyz or is it a case of you drop in and do what you want as and when?
My best bit of stalking I got 10 years ago when the site manager approached me to do something about their deer as they had received complaints from neighbouring landowners, so I obliged for free, the following year they wanted me to pay for it (and every year since and it slowly crept up) and when their land agent got wind he wanted to charge me a commercial stalking rate. I kicked back and reminded them of why I was there in the first place. We found a happy middle ground ultimately, but it’s a fine line. Would I want them dictating to me cull targets and number of visits? No, not really although if they did that wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it’s a funny old balance.
If this isn’t your primary source of income and is more of a hobby, enjoy it for what it is, accept the ammo and fuel prices and enjoy the fact you have land to shoot on, and a good reason for being there. If it’s your job, then clearly that’s different but expect the outcomes to be different and the expectations to be elevated.
 
SurreyHunter said:
Done a bit of searching but didn't quite find what I was looking for..

Do any of you charge for your services (ignoring paid stalk days)? I've got 3 stables and a golf course that I look after. I've never charged money for petrol or ammunition, I'm in talks with a second golf course and they've asked my rate (in email). I've yet to go back to them because I don't know if I should charge.. I've been told before that by not charging people think you're just a casual stalker / pest controller (I generally try to stick to deer, rabbits and edible general licensed birds) which most of the time I am, but as I find that I now go out more and more the cost of fuel and ammo is getting expensive, I wonder if I should?

£35-40 a box of 20 centerfire
£10 a box for 50 rimfire
£10 a box for a tin of pellets
£7 (ish) a box of 25 cartridges
My Jeep now costs me £130 to fill on an empty tank

The costs certainly add up quickly these days.. Curious what others do to either be cost neutral or to make a little side money?

Thanks
SH
Click to expand...
Work out what you would/do earn in that time, then add the insurance fuel rounds and send them an invoice.
I get a lot of work from farms fixing broken kit as being a one man band my rate is lower than the big firms
(some £100 per hr per man ) for years I shot a lot of foxes which opened the doors for free stalking...one farm is a head count of 200 + muntjac 20 fallow. So it is a balance of what you want to do, 2 weeks diving in the red sea or go stalking any day of the week.
 
I don’t charge anything, I get a butchered lamb every now & then from one farmer, a few walk round days off of another, I’m confident that if I tried to charge, someone else would be doing it for nothing guaranteed.
I get what the OP is say as regards everything going up cost wise but tell me any hobby/sport that hasn’t risen substantially of late.
 
Tugmanade said:
I don’t charge anything, I get a butchered lamb every now & then from one farmer, a few walk round days off of another, I’m confident that if I tried to charge, someone else would be doing it for nothing guaranteed.
I get what the OP is say as regards everything going up cost wise but tell me any hobby/sport that hasn’t risen substantially of late.
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Quite, it would be like charging the clay ground for a round of clays! Fuel, price of cartridges (silly me shooting 28 bore!!) etc, every sport whether shooting or otherwise is going up, as is everything else, just a case of prioritising what makes you happy and doing what you enjoy.
 
it varies

Culling work could be £250 / day plus hotel plus mileage plus ammunition - high volume “cycles “ with the infrastructure to deal costs to do a proper job

Regular visits to an area for another client £40 -£50 per visit plus any carcass value

Another could be free but carcass value as payment in kind

Another could be you do it because it’s a lovely place and you care about it - so free of charge

Another could be a one off goodwill payment by client for setting up a team in an area with an agreement to have regular visits and updates on progress


All of the above have been applicable to me

You need to pitch carefully and choose who you work with as there will always be someone who will try and doorstep you or bad mouth your work in attempt to gain advantage

Keep your team small, trustworthy and effective

Don’t discuss details in public ,,,,or hold “council “ in gun shops professing to be a deer expert 🙈 and best practice “trainer” ………

. (Recent example of how not to conduct oneself) the person concerned just looks a twxt 😂
 
I suppose if the said golf course is run well they would expect to pay for a professional service from you. Why not lay your cards on the table with them and thrash out some charge that is acceptable to both parties? I'm sure honesty pays off.
Like others have said land and permissions are in high demand, so they will have a queue of people wanting to do it, it's a different matter what sort of a job some of these folks would do, there are plenty of cowboys in my neck of the woods... god only knows how some have got a firearms license :doh:
 
Yes 3 of us pest control our shoot and the mention of a fee would soon make that only 2.
Catch 22 it's our hobby / lifestyle not a business but going professional would rack up costs .
As others said come to a beneficial agreement if possible 👍
 
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