Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Making a happy place
There’s no point having the perfect pheasant pen if it is in the wrong place. Liam Bell advises on how to make the most of what you’ve got
The ins and outs of pheasant pens
Apoorly sited, poorly constructed release pen won’t keep poults safe, nor will they want to stay in it, come back to it or treat it as home when they are big enough to fly out. The siting of pens, the way they are built and how the habitat within is managed will make a huge difference to how the poults do when they are released, how well they hold and how they behave on shoot days.
In an ideal world, a release pen would be in a warm wood on one side of a valley, with the drive on the opposite side. All you would have to do is feed the birds across and fly them back. In reality, this is not always possible and we usually have to make do with what we have got.
A good place to start, assuming you have a choice of sites, is somewhere central that is away from roads and public footpaths. Somewhere with decent access for when you are putting in the poults and somewhere that is easy to get to for dropping off food and visiting two or three times a day. There is no point having a great pen in the bottom of a wood if you can’t get at it to feed without having to go on a route march first.
You also need access to a water supply. Mains is always preferable and header tanks that can be filled up from a bowser come a close second, but I would steer away from including a stream or ditch within the pen. It might seem a good idea and would undoubtedly save on time filling drinkers and carting water, but the downside is that it might flood, the ground could become sodden in a wet summer — and a breeding ground for disease — and it will be next to impossible to dose the birds if they go down with something. Birds will always stop eating before they stop drinking and most medicines, especially if you do not want to have to wait for a batch of treated food to arrive, are best added to the water.
A fairly central, well-sheltered site with good access is ideal but the habitat inside the pen is equally important. There is not a lot of point having a pen in a great spot if the inside of it is cold, dark and unappealing. It must not be so open and exposed that there is nowhere for the birds to hide from predators or shelter from the wind, and nothing for them to roost in.
The inside of a pen should provide a variety of habitats. Birds need open spaces for sunbathing and drying off after a storm or a wet night, low herb cover for exploring and spending time in, low shrub cover for hiding from predators and early roosting, and finally some more mature trees with branches at 15ft to 20ft for proper roosting once they have got the hang of it.
“An afternoon with a chainsaw will open up rides and sunny areas”
“If in doubt about what size pen you need, build big but not so big that the birds get lost in it”
If a pen does not have all of them — and very few have — an afternoon with a chainsaw will help, at least with the opening up of rides and sunny areas. This will encourage herb growth and the creation of low roosting. Mature trees with low branches cannot be fixed overnight; about the only thing you can do about them is build your pen in the right place to start with.
Size matters
How big you make your pen will depend on a number of things, not least the number of birds you want to put in it. The old measure of one yard of perimeter per bird wasn’t far off, and it is far easier to work out than trying to “guesstimate” acreage.
It will, of course, depend on the habitat inside the pen and whether you think you might want to increase the number of birds you release in a few years’ time. If in doubt, build big; but not so big that the birds get lost in it. We always use tanalised posts for the fence. Using untreated or simple cut-down poles is a false economy: they never last and always seem to break when the pen is in use and the birds are pushing up against them.
A gate large enough to carry a crate through, or better still big enough to drive through, is a must. Small ones make the whole job harder and it takes just as long to make a big one as it does a small one that will skin your knuckles whenever you carry something in.
On our pens we have a length of wire netting of 1m high with 25mm holes running along the bottom, with about 1ft of it turned out and pegged down to stop stuff digging in. Then we overlap it with rolls of plastic game-net (2m high with 50mm holes), clipped on to the bottom wire and hung off a top straining wire — running from post to post — to make the height up to about 8ft.
A well-made, vermin-proof pen in a good spot with a nice variety of habitat inside it is a start. It won’t guarantee your release goes to plan, but it will certainly help.