Ex layer musings

[Stihl 090]

As i walk out my back gate i have access to 45 acres of woodland, seven acre paddock which come sept will have 12 sheep in.
The wood consists of chestnut coppice some of which was done in jan. Now has lovely ferns throughout with brash piles dotted around With a few rides cut through. Some blocks have under growth of brambles, ferns, braken etc. We get wood cock too in winter as well as rabbits and Deer and ive seen charlie on the odd occasion.
I currently have two feeders out for general wildlife support And have pulled in a few birds from a shoot around 1mile away as the pheasant flys but not many, our wood is warm and have seen more birds on colder winters than the last.
Was thinking of putting couple hundered or three quid into some more feeders corn and 150 exlayers later on.
Mainly for shooting over the dogs pre trial. I may be able to increase the budget if i have a word with a few local friends and the landowner.
Thoughts please if anyone has advice or done similar?

Simon

[pontbeck]

I've yet to meet anyone who has had success with ex layers.

[James]

we do every year lol, get the best ex layers you can as some can be hard hit so to speak. Bang them on good food and multi vits in the water. Lots of space in the pen and keep them in for as long as you can then trickle them out. If its good woodland and you feed and water well they wont go far.

[Stihl 090]

I've yet to meet anyone who has had success with ex layers.

Where we train he has gr8 succesz with his and normally we shoot as many as you want or can afford too.
Over a wknd training we would easily do 15 brace which is ample for four training sessions.
My maths suggest a price increase to around 4-500 would be needed Given wheat price of 186 pt. Given a weekend training for two of us would cost 3-350 it would initially be more ecnomic. But what i wont get is 30 yrs+ experience teaching me !!

[pontbeck]

I didn't want to rain on your parade but in my experience and that of my friends and acquaintances , we have found it hard to keep them as they just wander off but I'm talking of putting them down as part of a driven shoot.

[James]

I didn't want to rain on your parade but in my experience and that of my friends and acquaintances , we have found it hard to keep them as they just wander off but I'm talking of putting them down as part of a driven shoot.

they are much better for walked up imo, as they do like a good walk, but for us its good because the dogs have to work for their flush.

[stiffsteve]

My Pal and I had a 100a rough shoot many years ago. We did a fair bit of inprovement to encourage Game numbers, and decided to try a few ex layers.

We realeased about fifty a year for three years, all tagged. Feeders and good cover etc.in the release area.

Our Springers always found a few Pheasants for us during the season, but we never accounted for one tagged ex layer.

That's not to say that they did not increase the overall population on the shoot. We were convinced that there were more birds about.


Steve.

[Mike A]

On our shoot we catch up hens at the end of the season and pass them on to our supplier , we then get the same or more ex layers back . I believe we shoot a fairly small percentage of these but as they come at no cost and small effort (actually catching up is quite fun and rewarding ) everyone's a winner ,our supplier gets laying birds we get birds on the ground

[Alice]

you should be ok with them for pre-trial training, they're not up to much for driven though. You will also need to dog in pretty religiously if you've got a dog to use for that?

[countrryboy]

Ex-layers are not easy and very much a marmite bird, most would not touch 1 yet the odd minority swear by them. A few i know who swear by them also boundry large shoots thou, lucky gits
Thoose that get the best results tend to keep them in a roof netted release pen for as long as possible, would imagine will not be long till the game farms are wanting rid of them

I never think makes any difference wether birds were ex layer or poult when it comes to actually shooting them, holding them is the problem ,both can be driven or walked up, doubt anyone could ever tell wether a bird was an ex layer or a poult by the way it flys

Can u not release some poults instead?
For me i will alsways have poults over ex layers, most of the work is the same, u still need a release pen, u still need to check them every day if not more often, the money u save in price will probably be lost by the ammount of feed they will eat compared to a poult, even gettin ur poults in june makes a massive difference to ur feed bill. Can u find any wheat about this time of year sometimes a struggle/expensive until it gets harvested if u haven't stock piled some
Ur probably budgetting at £7-7.50 a poult this year but i bet ex layers will be £6 to buy and feed, don't need to hold/shoot many more to make difference up

Depending on ur situ and (if its ur ground) if u have a release pen built, if u don't have a pen and ur good with poultry possibly rearing ur own old school under broodies might work, i'm hoping to do this for next season (greys and pheasants) but should make it easier to release as u turf birds out on there own but put broodie out in its coop, so u can release small numbers all over the area which hopefully will be hefted to that area