Farmers Weekly - How farmers can tackle the booming deer population

[Goingback]

This is a massive subject and would be a neverending thread on here as to the right way to approach/deal with deer.

The farmer has too many deer -
how many is too many? - how or have they been correctly counted? - fallow, red and sika are herding and roam vast acreages (the old saying re fallow is: to manage a herd of fallow, you need 10,000 acres AND the 10,000 acres that they are on at the time). Over-shooting is as bad as under-shooting. a stable population benefits all but 100 separate land occupiers would have 100 differing opinions.
A 'pro' stalker/pro-management group require access to the deer without interruption or a 'spooked' herd (ole Fred who takes one but spooks many needs to be stood down)
A decent price needs to be paid for this service......carcasses alone don't pay well and are hard at times to get rid of.
Many would offer services for free.....some good but mostly on the amateur end of the scale.
Many would pay for the 'rights' and shoot trophy's and leave the rest.
DMG's would be the best option for large herding deer but even an acre owned by an anti amongst 10,000 acres that is stalked may hamper control if the herd camps out there during legal control hours.

 

[JTO]

With a current membership on the Stalking Directory of just over 33k potential stalkers ready and waiting there is no shortage of people to do the job, whether that's an individual or a group.

Just about sums it up!

 

[Nickb]

For reliability.

So someone doing it for free is unreliable....really ?

Farmers are notoriously greedy , they will not part with cash.

 

[SikaSeeker]

So someone doing it for free is unreliable....really ?

Farmers are notoriously greedy , they will not part with cash.

I don’t think he’s on about the person doing it for free is unreliable, if you know the person doing the control will probably never bring grief to the farmers door and be reliable. Be it not leaving gates open, frightening stock, bringing guests on, disrespecting neighbouring farmers etc….

 

[Hazlett]

My area is overrun with fallow, whereas roe are overshot. I started deer shooting because it was (almost) impossible to find a recreational stalker who had the self-control, time, motivation and interest in deer management not to shoot the easy deer, ie fallow bucks and roe. So I couldn't rely on any 3rd party to do the job I wanted.

I also think a big problem is that farmers generally do not recognize the costs of high numbers of deer on their business. I went to a talk that showed a photo of a pasture exclosure - about 6" grass inside and tight lawn on outside, just from winter fallow grazing. That would set the silage season back massively. Other farmers were completely taken by surprise that the deer could make so much difference.

But the article is a bit of a joke - saying farmers can tackle the deer problem, when Countryside Stewardship only gives grants for woodland, not for farmland. The moment farmers can get grants for their main business, then money can start to flow to stalkers to manage deer according to the impacts & costs they cause.

Of course, the deer/farming business/farmer culture/etc situation varies hugely around the country, so this article will resonate a lot more with some and be a total insult to others.

Etc.

 

[VSS]

So someone doing it for free is unreliable....really ?

Farmers are notoriously greedy , they will not part with cash.

If the person doing it for free is a recreational shooter, and therefore limited to weekends, then yes, unreliable.
I know of plenty of farmers (and, with all due respect Nick, I probably know more farmers than you do) who have someone shooting on their land, recreationally, for free, but when they get a problem midweek they'll get on the blower and phone around to find someone who can be there in 10 minutes, and the farmer is prepared to pay for it.
He who pays calls the shots, if you'll pardon the pun.
Faced with the choice between:
a) I'll pop over for free at the weekend;
or
b) I'll be there in 10 minutes and it'll cost you £60 per fox;
The farmer is going to go with option b.
Same goes for deer. Regardless of whether they've let the stalking to a weekend shooter, if the find 40 fallow in their winter wheat on a Wednesday morning they'll find someone who can go there straight away, and they'll pay them.

I know of one estate with a large deer population, that has had wannabe stalkers beating a path to their door for years, offering free deer management, and all have been turned away. When they want deer culled they contact a reliable stalker who goes and does the job in the way they want it done, larders the beasts and sends them a bill. Everyone happy, except the recreational guys.

 

[Pete6.5]

My area is overrun with fallow, whereas roe are overshot. I started deer shooting because it was (almost) impossible to find a recreational stalker who had the self-control, time, motivation and interest in deer management not to shoot the easy deer, ie fallow bucks and roe. So I couldn't rely on any 3rd party to do the job I wanted.

I also think a big problem is that farmers generally do not recognize the costs of high numbers of deer on their business. I went to a talk that showed a photo of a pasture exclosure - about 6" grass inside and tight lawn on outside, just from winter fallow grazing. That would set the silage season back massively. Other farmers were completely taken by surprise that the deer could make so much difference.

But the article is a bit of a joke - saying farmers can tackle the deer problem, when Countryside Stewardship only gives grants for woodland, not for farmland. The moment farmers can get grants for their main business, then money can start to flow to stalkers to manage deer according to the impacts & costs they cause.

Of course, the deer/farming business/farmer culture/etc situation varies hugely around the country, so this article will resonate a lot more with some and be a total insult to others.

Etc.

If a farmers business is effected by deer the money can already flow both ways. Incentives the stalker to carry out the job and spend more time sorting the problem and the farmer will see it in the return on crops.
At £400 a acre ish to get mazie to the clamp how many fields does a farmer want to loose before chucking 5k to sort the issue.
A 12 and a bit acre lose is not hard in a hi fallow area even around the edges.

 

[Nickb]

If the person doing it for free is a recreational shooter, and therefore limited to weekends, then yes, unreliable.
I know of plenty of farmers (and, with all due respect Nick, I probably know more farmers than you do) who have someone shooting on their land, recreationally, for free, but when they get a problem midweek they'll get on the blower and phone around to find someone who can be there in 10 minutes, and the farmer is prepared to pay for it.
He who pays calls the shots, if you'll pardon the pun.
Faced with the choice between:
a) I'll pop over for free at the weekend;
or
b) I'll be there in 10 minutes and it'll cost you £60 per fox;
The farmer is going to go with option b.
Same goes for deer. Regardless of whether they've let the stalking to a weekend shooter, if the find 40 fallow in their winter wheat on a Wednesday morning they'll find someone who can go there straight away, and they'll pay them.

I know of one estate with a large deer population, that has had wannabe stalkers beating a path to their door for years, offering free deer management, and all have been turned away. When they want deer culled they contact a reliable stalker who goes and does the job in the way they want it done, larders the beasts and sends them a bill. Everyone happy, except the recreational guys.

You must live in a different world then as it certainly doesn't happen up North.
I've been shooting for 40 years and dont know of anyone getting paid to shoot vermin , it just doesn't happen FACT.
No way in a million years will a farmer pay £60 to have a fox shot.
As for all recreational shooters being unreliable I think you will find most on here fall into that bracket....
Plenty so called professionals are unreliable and clueless too...

 

[shakey jake]

£5 per mole is too cheap.

£10 /£10.50 per mole, no mole no fee is more like it.

Charge by the hour, not by the mole

 

[ColinBr]

.

 

[Pete6.5]

You must live in a different world then as it certainly doesn't happen up North.
I've been shooting for 40 years and dont know of anyone getting paid to shoot vermin , it just doesn't happen FACT.
No way in a million years will a farmer pay £60 to have a fox shot.
As for all recreational shooters being unreliable I think you will find most on here fall into that bracket....
Plenty so called professionals are unreliable and clueless too...

I know someone near Oban that is paid to control foxes over a very large area. He's been doing it for 20 years.

 

[Nickb]

I know someone near Oban that is paid to control foxes over a very large area. He's been doing it for 20 years.

1 person and only because nobody lives there.

 

[VSS]

You must live in a different world then as it certainly doesn't happen up North.

No, I don't live in a different world from you. I'm just standing on the other side of the fence. The farmer’s side.

I've been shooting for 40 years and dont know of anyone getting paid to shoot vermin , it just doesn't happen FACT.
No way in a million years will a farmer pay £60 to have a fox shot.

It is happening.

As for all recreational shooters being unreliable I think you will find most on here fall into that bracket....
Plenty so called professionals are unreliable and clueless too...

I'm sorry, my use of the word "unreliable" was not meant to cast aspersions on anyone's ability. I was referring to their availability.


At the end of the day, different arrangements work for different people. Whether you pay to shoot, are paid to shoot, or do it for free, all are equally valid. But speaking as a farmer myself, I can tell that if a problem - whether that be deer or foxes or whatever - is actually having a significant negative impact on the productivity of the farm then the farmer is going to pay someone to come in and sort it out asap, and not wait for his weekend freebie guy to show up. That's a fact.

And I think we're going to see things moving more in that direction in future, as farmers are required to evidence (in the form of paid invoices) their wildlife management strategies in order to qualify for agri-environment schemes.

As for the suggestion - mooted earlier in this thread - that shooting is something we do for enjoyment, and therefore we shouldn't be paid for doing it, well next time you take your dog to the vets, ask the vet if he enjoys his job. If he says yes, don't pay him. See how you get on.

 

[Rhodesianjess]

A shoot owner near me has a part time keeper. He pays someone else to shoot his foxes
Personally I'd be changing keeper!

 

[Heym SR20]

We need a change in the way we manage deer. Not one or two individuals picking away at the problem all year round.

Instead concentrated efforts in the winter time - as lots of rifles out over a good area with clear cull targets, and a team moving everything about.

I can forsee driven deer shooting supplementing / replacing driven phaesant shooting as a farmer winter get together.

 

[Cheviot]

If the person doing it for free is a recreational shooter, and therefore limited to weekends, then yes, unreliable.
I know of plenty of farmers (and, with all due respect Nick, I probably know more farmers than you do) who have someone shooting on their land, recreationally, for free, but when they get a problem midweek they'll get on the blower and phone around to find someone who can be there in 10 minutes, and the farmer is prepared to pay for it.
He who pays calls the shots, if you'll pardon the pun.
Faced with the choice between:
a) I'll pop over for free at the weekend;
or
b) I'll be there in 10 minutes and it'll cost you £60 per fox;
The farmer is going to go with option b.
Same goes for deer. Regardless of whether they've let the stalking to a weekend shooter, if the find 40 fallow in their winter wheat on a Wednesday morning they'll find someone who can go there straight away, and they'll pay them.

I know of one estate with a large deer population, that has had wannabe stalkers beating a path to their door for years, offering free deer management, and all have been turned away. When they want deer culled they contact a reliable stalker who goes and does the job in the way they want it done, larders the beasts and sends them a bill. Everyone happy, except the recreational guys.

 

[TringSaint]

No, I don't live in a different world from you. I'm just standing on the other side of the fence. The farmer’s side.

It is happening.

I'm sorry, my use of the word "unreliable" was not meant to cast aspersions on anyone's ability. I was referring to their availability.


At the end of the day, different arrangements work for different people. Whether you pay to shoot, are paid to shoot, or do it for free, all are equally valid. But speaking as a farmer myself, I can tell that if a problem - whether that be deer or foxes or whatever - is actually having a significant negative impact on the productivity of the farm then the farmer is going to pay someone to come in and sort it out asap, and not wait for his weekend freebie guy to show up. That's a fact.

And I think we're going to see things moving more in that direction in future, as farmers are required to evidence (in the form of paid invoices) their wildlife management strategies in order to qualify for agri-environment schemes.

As for the suggestion - mooted earlier in this thread - that shooting is something we do for enjoyment, and therefore we shouldn't be paid for doing it, well next time you take your dog to the vets, ask the vet if he enjoys his job. If he says yes, don't pay him. See how you get on.

I wouldn’t say I am available to go to one of my farms as a minute’s notice to despatch a deer, but I do shoot them all in rotation but focusing on the farms with the biggest population and where the farmer perceives the issue to be significant.
One farm I shoot is not cropped apart from Lucerne, so the farmer is quite chilled about the deer, so long as he doesn’t see 20 in a single field! Others do have crops inc maize and beans and they are really hot on getting the numbers down and I work across the culling season to hit the agreed numbers.
It’s by no means a professional service, more a low pressure service which is built around my own free time.
Seems to work ok as I don’t get any complaints.

 

[Foxshot]

I don’t shoot deer for free. I’m paid to do it on every peice of ground that i manage. Pretty much all of my ground has previously been shot by amateurs who haven’t done the job properly. So yes, when deer become a serious problem farmers and land owners do often stop amateurs from coming on their ground for free and decide to start paying a professional to manage the deer properly. Despite what a lot of stalkers like to believe, the average guy who likes to go stalking once a fortnight often just doesn’t have the infrastructure or know how behind him to manage more difficult spots effectively. and by the way, I’m in an area where most stalkers moan that it’s impossible to get ground for free, yet I have a constant stream of landowners coming to me willing to pay me to manage deer. Despite what you might think, offering to manage ground for free doesn’t do you any favours.

 

[Jh1986]

We need a change in the way we manage deer. Not one or two individuals picking away at the problem all year round.

Instead concentrated efforts in the winter time - as lots of rifles out over a good area with clear cull targets, and a team moving everything about.

I can forsee driven deer shooting supplementing / replacing driven phaesant shooting as a farmer winter get together.

That appears to be happening my way. There is now a collaboration forming of all the stalkers, whether they be the individual amateur or the paid group of professionals. The idea being that they will arrange days where everyone will be out on their permission. You shoot your permission, the deer move around. Maybe onto the next guys permission where he shoots them.

 

[Tim.243]

Quite true...only part missed out was "recommend what stalking socks"