Survival & meat

[Hunter_zero]

I guess it's a different 'mentality' here in the UK, I'm not saying we have the right mentality as I actually like the idea of bag limits. Over here no landowner wants rabbits on their farm or pigeons on their crops, as such total eradication if that were possible would be welcome on most farms. It's the hunters that try to preserve quarry numbers, but if I am to be honest I'm a little old school or so it seems. Many 'new' guys just seem to want to make a mess of an animal, shoot as many as possible and move on to the next.
Pigeons: We have a few, Woodpigeon (Legally a pest species but regarded by hunters as an exceptional sporting bird), Feral Pigeons regraded as 'fly' rats as well , Rock Doves (look a bit like Woodpigeons but are protected), Collard doves (introduced in the 1950's and have spread like wildfire to become another pest species, taste good as well!) and ornamental doves etc.
Pheasants: Much the same over here, it's a rich man's sport. To buy a young poult it will cost you $3 (most shoots will put 2000 to 3000 birds on the ground), you then have to look after the birds, feeding them and keeping the birds in 'pen' until the birds are ready to be released which all cost money. Total cost per bird from poult to being shot is around $27. The bird is worth $5 at market, so it cost the shoot owners $22 more than the bird is worth to take it from young to shoot able if that makes sense.

Okay, the shoots will charge a gun $45 to shoot each bird, the gun could go down the market and buy a bird saving $40.
The worst thing of all is if we have bad weather, what happens then is that the shoots can not operate at the beginning of the open season, obviously the birds have cost $1000's, so they will hold cheap shoots at the end of the season to recuperate their money. Problem is that there isn't a big market in the UK for Pheasant after Xmas, so a great number of birds are shot and simply buried. That's what happens when things are run as a business.

John

[BBill]

I knew someone who had ferrets-they were descented and still stank. Do yours smell?

[Hunter_zero]

I knew someone who had ferrets-they were descented and still stank. Do yours smell?

Stink to high heaven! but no more so than cats, which to me stink like pure ammonia. We tend no to keep ferrets in doors, in fact I would guess 99.9% of all UK ferrets are kept out of doors.

John

[withers.45]

I guess it's a different 'mentality' here in the UK, I'm not saying we have the right mentality as I actually like the idea of bag limits. Over here no landowner wants rabbits on their farm or pigeons on their crops, as such total eradication if that were possible would be welcome on most farms.

Most hunters will follow the bag limits and not let the animals they do kill go to waste, although there are always those few that don't care or won't follow the law.

The wild boar problem here is much like your rabbit infestation. Total eradication is the goal, but will likely never happen, as they breed so quickly. As a non-native species, they are destroying farmland, woodlands, wildlife, farm stock, and can be pretty dangerous to people too. Its the one animal I could care less if people left laying. They can be eaten but I've never tried any, the hogs haven't made it in to Kentucky yet. They would be fun to shoot at but I don't want them in my backyard. Just imagine if your rabbits bred at about the same rate, grew to 3 to 400 pounds on average and were mean as hell. Thats the hog problem in the US.

[kernelkrink]

Don't forget Nutria (10-20lb rat), I recall reading an article from the 60s saying a particular ranch had killed something like a half million of them in one year and the state biologists never detected a drop in their numbers.....

[Hunter_zero]

The wild boar problem here is much like your rabbit infestation. Total eradication is the goal, but will likely never happen, as they breed so quickly. As a non-native species, they are destroying farmland, woodlands, wildlife, farm stock, and can be pretty dangerous to people too. Its the one animal I could care less if people left laying. They can be eaten but I've never tried any, the hogs haven't made it in to Kentucky yet.

We have a massive Wild boar problem here, not that the boars are true "wild boars" more escapees that have breed over the years. They cause a massive mess. Trust me boar taste better than venison, if you get one in the scope, shoot it and eat it (after cleaning and cooking of course ).

John

[sjohnson]

Must be a variational thing, or maybe what they eat.

Around here, venison is some of the very best tasting meat. My family prefers it to prime beef. Not to say that wild pig would be bad tasting - I wouldn't know as we don't have feral pigs here.

[Hunter_zero]

Must be a variational thing, or maybe what they eat.

Around here, venison is some of the very best tasting meat. My family prefers it to prime beef. Not to say that wild pig would be bad tasting - I wouldn't know as we don't have feral pigs here.

We have six species of Wild deer and obviously Boar, biggest to smallest :

Red Deer - Taste like beef.
Sika Deer - Never tasted one
Fallow Deer - Taste like ferrets rear ends smell, I don't like fallow
Roe Deer - By far and wide the best tasting meat, sort of like spring lamb
Chinese Water Deer - Never tasted one
Muntjac - Second best tasting meat, sort of like pork x venison

Wild Boar - Red meat, sort of like Muntjac x with pork or two thirds pork, one third venison. There are plenty of boar in Dean (40 mins away from my home) : Wild Boar Information Page

The deer you see, if a Fallow Deer. We have a couple of other species of deer such a Reindeer but not in abundance.

John

[MUSIBIKE]

There is this Blue Jay out there in the back yard. What a sense of humor this old thing has. POOPS on my chair on the deck. Think I will cap his ass and cook him up to test out harvesting skills plus, for a bit of payback.