Getting enough rest/sleep/time off in the fieldsports industry

User00040

Well-Known Member
A topic not talked about enough, especially among the industry professionals.

Depending on who you talk to, you are not supposed to work more than 48 hours a week.

Most contracts hover around the 40 hour mark (if they even mention hours!) yet in reality you are easily pulling 50 without thinking twice, yet I have met some who see it as a badge of honour to be doing up to 100 hour weeks with no extra financial compensation during the peak seasons. Working through the weekends also happen without question during the peak season, 'mandatory volounteering' so to speak!

The worst case is usually a single handed position where the keeper/stalker has snares to check, tasks to do (like bird feeding) before guests arrive, take them out stalking for the whole day, larder work, then lamp that night, rinse and repeat for 6 or even 7 days a week!

No one can keep that pace up forever and pulling such hours is an accident waiting to happen.

Sure an energy drink or two will perk you up for an hour or so, but when the eventual 'crash' happens, your brain is literally shutting down. It might seem harmless for someone to doze off on the side of a hill whilst waiting for something to happen but if they are at the wheel of a vehicle with guests onboard or operating machinery.

I'm pretty certain that many avoidable accidents have happened over the years could be traced back to the person' loss of judgement or ability being a direct result of lacking sufficent rest.

There is also the mental aspect that needs to be addressed, as everyone needs their own time for their family/personal life.

The truth is quite often glossed over with factors/managers being aware of whats going on, but never addressing it directly, as if they do bring it up it could be used against them in an employment tribunal.

Organisations like the Gamkeeper's Welfare Trust are doing good work, but you can't fix a leaking dam with a bathplug.

These problems are not limited to the private sector either, as people working in the industry under government/NGO's still face these issues, however these organisations often have employee trade unions where members can seek legal advice, and work-related concerns/grievances can be raised and addresed. I don't see this being a feature in the private estate world anytime soon.
 
A very valid topic for discussion.
Same problem exists in the farming industry. I can't ever remember working as little as 48 hours per week. Lambing time it might run up to 140 hours a week, albeit for a limited period.
The death rate amongst farmers and farm workers is truly shocking, both from accidents and from suicide. Exhaustion kills, one way or the other.
 
I suppose in many ways it's going to be incredibly hard to legislate. Additionally you will undoubtedly have many people willing to 'fill the gap' - much like the intern debacle.
 
A topic not talked about enough, especially among the industry professionals.

Depending on who you talk to, you are not supposed to work more than 48 hours a week.

Most contracts hover around the 40 hour mark (if they even mention hours!) yet in reality you are easily pulling 50 without thinking twice, yet I have met some who see it as a badge of honour to be doing up to 100 hour weeks with no extra financial compensation during the peak seasons. Working through the weekends also happen without question during the peak season, 'mandatory volounteering' so to speak!

The worst case is usually a single handed position where the keeper/stalker has snares to check, tasks to do (like bird feeding) before guests arrive, take them out stalking for the whole day, larder work, then lamp that night, rinse and repeat for 6 or even 7 days a week!

No one can keep that pace up forever and pulling such hours is an accident waiting to happen.

Sure an energy drink or two will perk you up for an hour or so, but when the eventual 'crash' happens, your brain is literally shutting down. It might seem harmless for someone to doze off on the side of a hill whilst waiting for something to happen but if they are at the wheel of a vehicle with guests onboard or operating machinery.

I'm pretty certain that many avoidable accidents have happened over the years could be traced back to the person' loss of judgement or ability being a direct result of lacking sufficent rest.

There is also the mental aspect that needs to be addressed, as everyone needs their own time for their family/personal life.

The truth is quite often glossed over with factors/managers being aware of whats going on, but never addressing it directly, as if they do bring it up it could be used against them in an employment tribunal.

Organisations like the Gamkeeper's Welfare Trust are doing good work, but you can't fix a leaking dam with a bathplug.

These problems are not limited to the private sector either, as people working in the industry under government/NGO's still face these issues, however these organisations often have employee trade unions where members can seek legal advice, and work-related concerns/grievances can be raised and addresed. I don't see this being a feature in the private estate world anytime soon.
I ran my salvage yard/panel shop for 9 years 6 1/2 days a week 7 till we finished, the luxury of painting a car around 3pm was to finish clean the spray gun and **** off home.

My Dad worked 7 days a week most of his life....and in the 50/60's coming up to xmas he would go killing and plucking turkeys till 10 pm...he never complained :tiphat:
 
One of my reasons for hating the summer months, there's an awful lot of daylight.
Regarding the hours, I saw my dad working (farmer) crazy hours, even Christmas day so it seems relatively normal to me even now. I suppose you've to do what you have to do.
I generally go of how I'm feeling, I know when I've had enough so feel no shame in having a sleep in the middle of the day otherwise I just feel disinterested and that makes things unproductive. I've found keeping people happy at home the hardest thing....unhappy wife/kids unhappy life.
End of the day I'm mostly my own boss, long as the trees aren't eaten I'm left alone and that's as good as I can ask.
Ps, also helps to work for a company that values its staff and the fact I like my own company.
 
I ran my salvage yard/panel shop for 9 years 6 1/2 days a week 7 till we finished, the luxury of painting a car around 3pm was to finish clean the spray gun and **** off home.

My Dad worked 7 days a week most of his life....and in the 50/60's coming up to xmas he would go killing and plucking turkeys till 10 pm...he never complained :tiphat:

Might be a bit different if you decided on your own hours?
 
I see the point made however this boils down to the point of being employed or self employed.
If you are employed yes you cant choose your hours but you have less responsibility/risk and when your hours are up you can go home.
If you are self employed often you work longer hours than most of your employees looking after your "baby" (business) and when something goes wrong its your problem and you have all the risk.
My advice would be if you dont like working in the farming/shooting industry then get out. Surely before one starts a position they have a good idea of what is expected of them and what annual leave they get. Often a keeper/farm hand will have accommodation included which is a forgotten perk??
Also if an employee is not interested in looking out for its business then why should the business look out for its employee, eg- sick leave, maternity/paternity etc
 
IMHO a lot of people particularly youngsters who are just leaving school see keepering as a nice job, work a bit and walk round with a gun a lot.
Unfortunately they don't see the downside and in my time I've had one or two that stuck at it and others that couldn't hack it.
I'm afraid it's something you either are born too or have seen it in the family. I myself didn't start until late full time, but had helped a keeper out since I was young as well as having an ex Head keeper as Grandad. The job is not too bad if you are not rearing, but if you are with pheasants and partridge the whole year is 24/7. From end of season through catching up, vermin control, incubation and then dawn till dusk on a rearing field for at least five months. All followed by the shooting season and start again.
Oh I forgot to factor in possible deer stalking with perhaps guests for Roe at the dawn to dusk bit of rearing. You can safely say for seven months a 16 or 18 hour day can be quite the norm. You will be expected to do it by most employers as a keeper seven days a week.
How nice it is if you just have poults.
Sorry to be depressing but that's the game like it or not, it's what you sign up for.
 
Hear what you are saying but! My contract said something like hours of work will be customary
Gamekeepers/Stalkers hours, so in other words whatever they wanted you to work.
Yes it was hectic at times as a young keeper having to feed polts before going to the grouse meant a five am start then
feeding again when you got home made it a fifteen hour working day.
In the winter when shooting for a full week had to go round filling your hoppers in the dark so there was sure to be feed for the next day often 10 pm before you were finished again a fifteen hour day.
Roe buck stalking in May up at 3am pick up clients drive to stalking area for first light drop clients off at their accommodation at 8am if all had gone well a lost Buck and it could be considerably later back home do larder work
breakfast 9.30 if lucky usually nearer 10.00 clean any heads the clients might have try go grab a couple of hours sleep
and something to eat before meeting clients again at 6.45 if lucky finished in the larder for midnight repeat for the next
four weeks.
Yes tough times living on Red Bull and Pro- Plus but you know something I would not change anything about it, that was
the life I chose so you won't hear me complain.
What about when things were not so busy I could decide to take off for the day and no one said what are you
doing . In winter when it was blowing a blizzard pull my chair up to the fire throw another log on the fire and declare I'm
not going out in that.
In summer could spend an afternoon tending my garden .
It is all about having the self discipline to put the hours in when you.need to and to know when you can ease off on the throttle a bit, not every one can get that balance right, some will try to abuse it and don't last long in the job.
It is impossible to do this job working set hours and if you are the sort of person that wants a 37 hour week with evenings and weekends off, then its not for you.
As has been said in other posts it's a way of life more than a job and if you can't look at it as
such, you won't be happy and should seriously look at an other career.
 
Might be a bit different if you decided on your own hours?
I like many in my year of 1977 used to moped from my tiny village to training collage 21 miles along the A127 in all weathers 4 days a week then the 5th day was 9am to 9pm for the day release side.
In the training collage holidays I started arrived 6.50 to start @ 7am with the men till 5.30pm at the tool room...

When hod carriers used to complain about loading out on a Sunday, Dad paid them up till Saturday, loaded out himself Sunday and found a new hoddy for Monday... :popcorn:

Looking back to my dive guide days it was on a par to guiding stalkers....they only went once a year and had forgotten most of what they had read on line the next trip..:rofl:
 
Most of the jobs relating to field sports are vocations and not careers, you have to love the life and it’s rare that these make a person any significant earning, the trade off is for the most part you are your own supervisor and get to decide the way things are done and the days are usually never the same.

Regards,
Gixer
 
@bogtrotter , maybe you have had good luck in the industry or I've just had terrible luck, but I know of a few factors/estate managers who seemed to delight in running their employees into the ground on bare bones pay. I experienced this myself.

No surprise that no one stays at those places for long (except the factor of course!), and the excuse 'they could not take the work' is always given to the owner. Not sure how that can be true when you look at the careers that some of those ex-employees have gone on to have, but the line of people naively taking a job there never seems to stop. They advertise nearly every year but the name of the estate is no longer as prominent in the ad (if even mentioned) as I suspect word has spread...
Just had a thought, Aldi are recruiting if you're fancying something with regular hours! 👍

Keep that in mind if you lose your job ;)

Was always thus and will always be so .Want regular hours work elsewhere .It really is that simple .

Less so about regular hours, more so about fair compensation for time worked.

If you can afford to own an estate, you can afford to pay your employees properly.

If you can't do that, or think estates should not be run at a profit and not a break even/ slight loss, best get it sold.

Most of the jobs relating to field sports are vocations and not careers, you have to love the life and it’s rare that these make a person any significant earning, the trade off is for the most part you are your own supervisor and get to decide the way things are done and the days are usually never the same.

Regards,
Gixer

Aye, but saying "Oh, it comes with the job and they knew full well what they were getting into when they signed up" to the friends/family members/collegues attending a funeral is not the done thing, is it? No matter what industry/line of work they were in...

Personally don't see commercially reared/farmed game birds continuing in the UK for much beyond the 2020's, like it or not. The driven grouse moors have the conservation angle to play, which is very much valid, but I suspect something along the lines of a large increase in sporting rates for land use is going to be implemented in Scotland.

On the other hand, if you are in the right place (Scotland) at the right time, have all the gear/tickets and know the right people, you can run deer contracts from September till the end of March, leaving you time to do whatever work comes between then.

I know a guy who does exactly that, now drives machines during that 'off time' between contracts, who used to be a keeper. What he said to me was: 'Why should I be a glorified chicken farmer for more than half a year (phesants) and rely on tips from guests to cover my expenses when I can earn twice or even thrice as much doing what I do now, see my friends and family, and have more shooting than I could possibly want?!'

I firmly believe that a professional should be paid as one, and some of the wages in the fieldsports industry are already horrific before you look at the hours worked. Yes, the old provision of a house and vehicle, dog+fuel allowance might have meant a reasonable and maybe even a good living a few decades ago when the economy was different (think a few pence for a loaf of bread and under a pound for a pint of beer) but expecting someone to live off less than £30k a year (I don't know any keeper/stalker who gets that!) and run a house, car, provide for a family and their needs, yet somehow have savings, is absurd.

The deer industry in Scotland is going from private estate to privatised contracts with the government/NGO's, yet the future is currently bright, if only due to a spotlight being used ;) things might go a bit darker with night vision and thermal coming in...
 
Aye, but saying "Oh, it comes with the job and they knew full well what they were getting into when they signed up" to the friends/family members/collegues attending a funeral is not the done thing, is it? No matter what industry/line of work they were in...
Bit over dramatic - nobody is holding a gun to any of their/our heads - there is plenty of work out there in the U.K. and as someone said - you could literally go and make more at Aldi’s if money or hours was a driver. As I’m sure you are aware many farmers would laugh if a keeper tried to moan about the hours they do.

I should add - I agree with you that driven shooting for the most part is dying a death - and to be honest so are most country sports as the lefties gain a better hold and convince people about sentient beings…

regards,
Gixer
 
Fair comment above but if you can squeeze your employer for your true worth as a keeper regards hours and maximum hours worked you’ll be the first and might be up for some sort of award .I’m not telling you to suck eggs but you only get out what you put in .Lazy keepers beget lazy days and p45 .
If it’s getting to you ,you really need to take a step back and either take it up with your employer ,ask for more help or rethink your career .
 
Also, on the income side - there are many people live on a wage below 30k, and as you say the house, vehicle, fuel is a big perk - unfortunately most don’t put away anything for retirement and when it hits them it’s like a train, all of a sudden no house, vehicle etc. And most I know say “if I could do it again I would do something different”….

How much do you feel a keeper/stalker should be paid? And do you reckon all pay tax on all their income?

regards,
Gixer
 
Could of stuffed a small pillow with the tips we got in the short time I was at it but that gets overlooked when a whinge is needed .
 
Could of stuffed a small pillow with the tips we got in the short time I was at it but that gets overlooked when a whinge is needed .

Sure it's nice to have income that VAT man's greasy fingers can't touch, but I suspect most didn't get much in the way of tips from international guests with CV19's impact?

'Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir!' is exactly the mentality which sees grown men grovelling for tips.

I don't feel the need to do that in any shape or form.
 
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