What do you do with your gralloch?

What do you do with your gralloch?


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NigelM

Well-Known Member
This is a question for the woodland stalkers rather than those on the hill.

My understanding is that it is not illegal to leave the gralloch/pluck/legs/head at the shot site as wild deer are exempt from disposal regulations at the shot site. If you take them back to the larder to remove pluck/legs/head then you do come under the legislation and are required to dispose of the parts properly. I do know you are not meant to dispose of anything within 50 meters of a water course.

The public do tend to get a little disturbed when fido comes back with a Roe head in his mouth after ferreting around in the bushes, and some land owners get a little revved up when they stumble upon our leftovers.

Some stalkers I know always bag up the parts and dump them in a corner of the estate on the grounds that if you leave parts lying about it puts other deer off. Others bury the parts but I'm sure they are dug up my Charlie soon afterwards.

So what do you do?
 
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We could have lots of options Willie, but I was trying to keep it simple. Please read "parts" as any parts you choose to leave behind.

My point was more that the green gralloch will biodegrade in short order, whereas head and legs will take considerable time.

Where stalking land is crossed by footpaths, walkers, dogs etc then there is less chance of Fido returning with something resembling a black magic ritual if the head and legs are removed in the larder and suitably disposed of. As it is, none of your options reflect this approach. But each to their own.
 
I personally take every thing away , having the facility of weekly knackerman collections (perk of being a poultry farm manager!) make life so much easier and since removing all waste i am seeing alot more deer , particularly where the red deer are concearned.

i pay £30 per wheelie bin collected and in my opinion money well spent , plus it keeps the farmers happy with no mess about the place.

What sealed it for me was when an irrate farmers wife phoned saying her belovid terrier had rolled in red deer gralloch and then dragged it back whrough the cat flap !

Not a happy woman i can tell you !
 
My point was more that the green gralloch will biodegrade in short order, whereas head and legs will take considerable time.

Where stalking land is crossed by footpaths, walkers, dogs etc then there is less chance of Fido returning with something resembling a black magic ritual if the head and legs are removed in the larder and suitably disposed of. As it is, none of your options reflect this approach. But each to their own.

Fair point Willie. Will try to add another option, just not sure how at the moment!
 
What sealed it for me was when an irrate farmers wife phoned saying her belovid terrier had rolled in red deer gralloch and then dragged it back whrough the cat flap !

Not a happy woman i can tell you !

I know of a similar story - precious pooch ate the gralloch, returned home and proceeded to regurgitate said gralloch onto the antique Persian rug.

Not a recipe for a happy landowner-stalker relationship!
 
Sorry guys, have tried to edit poll to add another option for Willie but you don't seem to be able to add another option. Please use option 2 if you leave gralloch/pluck at site and take legs/head away with you.
 
There is no simple answer to that as I always used to gralloch and leave green for foxes etc but never remove legs and head until in the larder as that way you have less chance of contaminating meat .more recently as most of my retreivels have been using the quad I had a shovel and buried everything (badgers and foxes will dig them out )A farmers wife complained so now its best to use a supermarket bag and take everything back and drop it in the pit.
 
When I was shooting several roe each year the green gralloch was usually left discreetly at the shot site unless close to public access areas, then all went away. Head, legs, skin etc was buried after butchering (always deeper than charlie could reach). It's handy being a digger driver:D
 
Thanks for all the replies guys. I think this probably confirms that what I'm doing is the norm, although I do need to think about taking heads and legs away with me.
 
Can't really answer as I do a mixture of all of them depending upon where I'm shooting.:confused:
Shot 2 roe bucks tonight in a very busy nature reserve where I leave the gralloch hidden discretely for the badgers/foxes but take head/legs away still attached.
One area has gralloch bins out on the ground for all waste, another has a 'dead pit'. Some of the more sensitive areas I leave nothing behind. You should probably seek the owners opinion really?
MS
 
Can't really answer as I do a mixture of all of them depending upon where I'm shooting.:confused:
Shot 2 roe bucks tonight in a very busy nature reserve where I leave the gralloch hidden discretely for the badgers/foxes but take head/legs away still attached.
One area has gralloch bins out on the ground for all waste, another has a 'dead pit'. Some of the more sensitive areas I leave nothing behind. You should probably seek the owners opinion really?
MS

Sorry if this is off topic but are dead pits still allowed?
 
Sorry if this is off topic but are dead pits still allowed?

It's probably contentious, but if it is more than 1m deep and away from water course etc and has a locked lid on it? It's surely the same as burying it - only we just haven't filled it in yet! It's a fox pit really.
MS
 
I leave the green gralloch there out of sight, and take heads and legs away to buried or binned after I have butchered the deer up.
 
take head and legs away but the rest is opened upand left out of sight and as far away from footpaths as possible
chances are it will be mostly gone within 48 hrs
have often looked for gralloch evidence that I have left on concurrent visits and been amazed at how clean the area is

Mrs Jones' labrador is just as likely to feck off and find a dead badger/fox/backpacker to roll around in and eat as they are to find a gralloch

if you dog is away from you long enough to eat a gralloch then you only have yourself to blame...IMO
 
I leave it all onsite, hidden out of the way as much as possible, we do have some dog walkers but I never leave anything near footpaths etc.
It would be interesting to see how long t takes for this to disappear in different areas, I know for a fact, having revisited sites it goes pretty quickly round my way.
I didn't realise how quick until shot a muntjac once, gralloched it, but put the deer in the boot of car as I had only been there half an hour, so wanted to see what else was about. As there wasn't much I walked back to the car to get the deer out to remove the head and legs in same spot I gralloched it.
Less then an hour had passed and all that was left was a bloody stain.
I keep meaning to stick a trail-cam up at a gralloch site to see who visits and when.
 
I leave it all onsite, hidden out of the way as much as possible, we do have some dog walkers but I never leave anything near footpaths etc.
It would be interesting to see how long t takes for this to disappear in different areas, I know for a fact, having revisited sites it goes pretty quickly round my way.
I didn't realise how quick until shot a muntjac once, gralloched it, but put the deer in the boot of car as I had only been there half an hour, so wanted to see what else was about. As there wasn't much I walked back to the car to get the deer out to remove the head and legs in same spot I gralloched it.
Less then an hour had passed and all that was left was a bloody stain.
I keep meaning to stick a trail-cam up at a gralloch site to see who visits and when.

labradors can eat a lot in one go.......
 
I am sure they can, this was a fenced garden and it was eaten by a fox, he was watching me as I took the head and feet off the deer.
Looking very pleased with himself but with a very bloody bib, as you would expect.
 
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