Dumping of shot pheasants

[EssBee]

Too many folks ready to pay big bucks for big bags, cannot be good for the future of shooting - ego precedes downfall.
It's a simple job to dress any game all you need is a good sharp knife and a cclean area to do the job. I'll bet there are loads of people who would be grateful for a few pheasant breast and legs and if you are giving them away free you've very little or any liability.

 

[Free range rob]

No different to straw being a bi-product of growing wheat and barley TBH. The difference is that people don't travel around the country chucking money at local country estates, hotels and pubs to eat wheat.
Lets not forget that one of the reasons that venison prices are currently quite low is because the hospitality industry is working at well below pre-covid levels. That will hopefully change in the near future though.

Straw isn’t classed as a bi product, it’s a crop in its own right, have you seen the prices ?

I'm not going to get involved any more than to say these threads always disappoint me how quick many fellow shooters/fieldsportsmen are to automatically believe everything antis write.
Most of the more extreme 1's couldnae lie straight in bed.

I have picked up on a lot of shoots and know quite a few keepers and can honestly say i've never ever know a keeper to dump birds wholesale, i know 1 shoot who released kanas X birds so quite small anyway were very strict when sorting they're birds, but only as the game dealer didn't really want such small birds. So yes a higher % were classed as unfit for human consumption + showing some very good birds and quite rocky/hard ground in places never going to help the state the birds are in
Every other shoot in the area the game dealer just takes the job lot.


The real thing i wanted to post and i'm possibly too late as seasons over but if any have any birds hanging and i see someone mentioned plucking some a few pages back.

I've never plucked a pheasant for years, lifes too short for that esp if ur getting quite a few, heard all sorts of random 'brilliant' ways to deal with them, from standing on the wings and pulling there legs ( never really liked it) etc

But the best way i was shown a couple of years ago
U twist/cut both wings off
U then put ur fingers of 1 hand down the gizzard/wishbone, grab the bird head/neck with ur other hand and just pull.
They just rip apart and it leaves u with a nice fairly clean crown still on the bone.
Real easy and relatively mess free.

I also breast my birds out very similiar, chop both wings off, pull legs apart to split the skin and skin off the breast, fingers between crop and breast bone and pull, can have a pheasant breasted out in a few seconds, then I do the legs.

Well how long does a thing have to be here, in the UK, before it stops having this stupid "non-native" tag? For it seems to suit some that whilst pheasants are "non-native" beavers are native. Yet the beaver being re-introduced are not British beaver but beaver from outside Britain.

The particular species of dormouse introduced by the Romans is "non-native" yet does it get a bad press? Only the poor bloody pheasant gets it. That...guess what...those same Romans likely introduced. Been here continuously now near two thousand years and it's still "non-native". What daftness is that?

Sounds very much like the village I live in and been called an outsider

 

[foxdropper]

Group hug ???

 

[Pedro]

Group hug ???

Good idea, but with some, it'd be like the hug Julius Caesar got on March 15th 44BC.

 

[bfltd0]

Good idea, but with some, it'd be like the hug Julius Caesar got on March 15th 44BC.

Yes, officer, he committed suicide.

He stabbed himself to death.

In the back.

15 times.

With a sword.

 

[Klenchblaize]

It will be interesting to see what rating a Supermarket vacuum packed pheasant will achieve this coming Autumn:

K

 

[Liveonce]

So bananas will be a F/G then given where we import them from, along with a lot of imported fruit and veg.
Home produced meat and poultry an A.

vegetarians should love that.

 

[shakey jake]

So bananas will be a F/G then given where we import them from, along with a lot of imported fruit and veg.
Home produced meat and poultry an A.

vegetarians should love that.

i doubt any farmed meat would get towards an a, poultry feed is full of soya meal alot of the time. be interesting to see. i wonder how bad the carbon foot print per veg is on a container ship?

 

[Foxyboy43]

And as for Sainsbury’s shitake mushrooms from china….

 

[timbrayford]

I was saddened to see a video by anti bloodsports activists showing pheasants being dumped into a reported mine shaft on shoot land near Machynlleth.That area has a few well known specialist high bird shoots.If anything that will contribute to the demise of driven pheasant shooting then behaviour like this will.We already have many challenges to all our Fieldsports and yet we continue to offer own goals such as this.

Its a classic case of best practice and regulations being ignored. We don't know the precise circumstances and its highly likely that for whatever reason the birds were unfit for human consumption, just the same as the rest of the meat & veg that we consume being subject to q.c. However I wish that those know alls that believe that we don't need training and qualifications would take note of this!

 

[foxdropper]

I was impressed with the setup the shoot I beat on has regarding shot birds .The beaters have first dibs ,as many as you require and several make use of this including myself .The remainder ,quite a few are given to local restaurants and eateries for free .They come to collect and collectively breast ,skin , pluck as required .It’s a social event in the weekly shoot calendar .
The cost for this small use of keepers time is incorporated into the price per bird at the shooting stage .
Cant see why this isn’t more widely used tbh .Game dishes in the Cotswolds are a big part of hospitality .

 

[VSS]

I was impressed with the setup the shoot I beat on has regarding shot birds .The beaters have first dibs ,as many as you require and several make use of this including myself .The remainder ,quite a few are given to local restaurants and eateries for free .They come to collect and collectively breast ,skin , pluck as required .It’s a social event in the weekly shoot calendar .
The cost for this small use of keepers time is incorporated into the price per bird at the shooting stage .
Cant see why this isn’t more widely used tbh .Game dishes in the Cotswolds are a big part of hospitality .

That's just how it should be done

 

[Jamouk]

Is it only me that takes as many pheasants as i can ... i take as much meat as I can off them and then run them through my dehydrator and make healthy nutritious dog treats ? Tescos are nearly 5 quid a pack for 3 chicken half breast chews ! My dog loves them

 

[Bez4390]

If all the facts are correct and the birds have just been disposed of, pretty shocking give people out there are struggling to eat... Good meat and could feed those less well off.

 

[Ratel]

Instead of buying raw food for dog eg minced chicken, or beef, I breasted out a lot of pheasants given to me and minced the rest of the carcases. Fed my dog for a month. Same thing 80percent meat 20 percent bone.

 

[3red dogs]

If you aren’t sure that they will be used, don’t do it! We shoot 100 per fortnight and they are all used. Elevensys on our shoot incorporates pheasant gougons.
We must get a handle on our sport.
I run 4 labs picking up - great fun.
Stalk all species of deer.- Ok if it goes for food.
Shoot 8 bore for pinks in Scotland. - nothing ever wasted.
Fish all over the country for fun and to keep fisheries running.
Just do want you want to do and keep your nose clean.
Evntually it will all level out.

 

[Rowey]

This has been my last season as a keeper for a Midlands syndicate. Great last season and had a great time doing it but now I'm feeling my age. Truth be told though I'm grateful for wealthy folk who shoot and have given me the privilege of doing a job that most people never get a chance to experience. Not all our paying guests could be classed as 'sportsmen' that's true. But we have to be realistic. Without them we have no job or hobby or sport of our own. It's just part of the deal. It's unrealistic to expect everyone to follow the code. But let's keep going as long as we're able and give the next generation a chance to enjoy it before we can do so no longer because in all honesty I can see that day coming.

 

[HallyButt]

£60 per Kilo Caviar?

 

[Pedro]

This has been my last season as a keeper for a Midlands syndicate. Great last season and had a great time doing it but now I'm feeling my age. Truth be told though I'm grateful for wealthy folk who shoot and have given me the privilege of doing a job that most people never get a chance to experience. Not all our paying guests could be classed as 'sportsmen' that's true. But we have to be realistic. Without them we have no job or hobby or sport of our own. It's just part of the deal. It's unrealistic to expect everyone to follow the code. But let's keep going as long as we're able and give the next generation a chance to enjoy it before we can do so no longer because in all honesty I can see that day coming.

I hope you keep going with your sport as a hobby and remain involved in some capacity. I know what getting old means, those feed bags just don't get any lighter. I also hope your last sentence prediction doesn't come true.

 

[enfieldspares]

And as for Sainsbury’s shitake mushrooms from china….

And farmed trout. Three tons of sand dredged sand eels to produce one ton of reared trout is often quoted.