All present and correct

[Stavross 13,728]

Well the birds have been in for a couple of days now ( a little bit later ) and all looking well, 400 in each pen, had a walk round, no dead and non outside the pens, they are taking feed and enjoying sunning themselves and generally doing pheasant stuff, now the proper work begins 

[j j m 6,481]

looking good

[shovel leaner 7,648]

Nice looking birds them Stavros .

[Stavross 13,728]

Yeah, I’m happy with them this year, they are a bit bigger with them been late going in and they are very quiet, even when I was in the pens the were just wandering about, not flighty at all, not like last year when after a couple of days they were all over the place 

[shovel leaner 7,648]

What are they , ring necks , Americans , black necks , bazanty ?

[Stavross 13,728]

They are ment to be ring necks, but time will tell, it wouldn’t be the first time the breeder has sent us whatever he had left, with us been a little shoot we are near the bottom of his list, hopefully they will be what he said this year

[shovel leaner 7,648]

Unless they are out of a closed flock laying  system you tend to get what you are given . I always got my day olds in from France and you got what you asked for . Bettwys hall are pretty good , but they aren’t the cheapest. I asked for ring necks this season but I’ve got ones with blue and green backs in amongst them . If the hatchery are using caught up hens , who knows what you will get !!!

[Stavross 13,728]

He is normally quite good with us, two seasons ago he had a lot of problems so we got what we were given, I think he just got to big and couldn’t cope with the amount of birds he was producing they turned out to be a load of blacks and for whatever reason they didn’t want to fly, half way through the season we were taking dogs up flushing them towards flags a couple of days before we were shooting, teaching them to get up higher than head hight

[shovel leaner 7,648]

I’ve seen it a couple of times where birds don’t want to fly . The first one was a young keeper had done a brilliant job of keeping the birds , but he was whistleing them and hand feeding from a bucket and they were tame , some flew but most just ran around his ankles . The second was a shoot I used to help out beating on and their birds had been sick and never really recovered and a lot would just fly low or just get up in the trees . Black necks will fly if they are fit and wild . 

[Stavross 13,728]

I have the whistling problem with one of the lads that does a fair bit of feeding up, when they are swapping over onto the wheat we hand feed a bit around the pens and he’s a bugger for getting them to follow him around, a few years ago it always worked well because there was just a couple of us doing the work but we have a lot of new members now and they all want to be involved unlike the old lot who just wanted to turn up and shoot, this has been a help leading up to the birds arriving but it can be a bit of a problem once they are in as I keep getting phone calls from members saying “ I’m up at the shoot do you want me to feed up “ all I want to say in no, bugger off until we start in November but it’s there shoot as well so I can only try to guide them away from putting tons of feed out, I’ve had to number feeders to let people know what wants feed in otherwise they would just fill everything 

[shovel leaner 7,648]

3 hours ago, Stavross said:

I have the whistling problem with one of the lads that does a fair bit of feeding up, when they are swapping over onto the wheat we hand feed a bit around the pens and he’s a bugger for getting them to follow him around, a few years ago it always worked well because there was just a couple of us doing the work but we have a lot of new members now and they all want to be involved unlike the old lot who just wanted to turn up and shoot, this has been a help leading up to the birds arriving but it can be a bit of a problem once they are in as I keep getting phone calls from members saying “ I’m up at the shoot do you want me to feed up “ all I want to say in no, bugger off until we start in November but it’s there shoot as well so I can only try to guide them away from putting tons of feed out, I’ve had to number feeders to let people know what wants feed in otherwise they would just fill everything 

Sounds like too many cooks 

[Stavross 13,728]

More like to many cocks, I’ve already had one ring me telling me he is up there and do I want them to check the birds, I’ve sent him over the far side to cut rides out for the beaters, he seemed happy enough with that so one less job for me

[The one 8,397]

Looking good mate the dry summer will have helped them loads 

[Stavross 13,728]

Cheers, another two or three weeks of dry sunny weather will do me until they are well settled in, but looking at the long distance weather I don’t think there’s much chance of that

[foxdropper 17,092]

6 hours ago, Stavross said:

More like to many cocks, I’ve already had one ring me telling me he is up there and do I want them to check the birds, I’ve sent him over the far side to cut rides out for the beaters, he seemed happy enough with that so one less job for me

Never happy you keepers,lol.Same lads won't be letting you down later in the year I guess when your workload increases .