Gamekeeping Work and Accommodation

Advice relating to planning permission

Gamekeeping:

The Work Schedule and Accommodation Requirements

Notes prepared by the National Gamekeepers' Organisation

Gamekeepers are employed to manage wildlife populations, and in particular to provide and improve game and wildfowl for shooting, on farms and sporting estates.  Over the UK as a whole, such shooting is now worth over £1.6 billion a year and it sustains 70,000 jobs. It is a particularly important activity in rural areas, where falling farm incomes and changing social patterns are otherwise resulting in depopulation and the decline of local communities.

The typical lowland gamekeeper's year begins in February/March with preparation for the rearing season. This will involve laying out a rearing field with brooder huts and pens and gathering a stock of laying birds to produce eggs later in the spring.

Another key activity at this time, and indeed throughout the year, is predator control - to keep the numbers of wild species harmful to gamebirds in check. Culling foxes, rats, crows and other harmful species will involve a combination of shooting and the setting of a range of legal traps. These must be checked at regular intervals, by law, usually every 24 hours but sometimes more frequently. Cage traps for crows and magpies must have water and food available at all times and the decoy birds must be checked at least once a day.  Rodent control using anticoagulent rat bait also requires daily attendance at bait sites. Because of the distances and time involved in making all these checks, close proximity of the gamekeeper to his work is important to ensure efficiency and strict adherence to the law. Early starts, sometimes before dawn, and late finishes for lamping (shooting pests at night) are typical.

In April, the birds start to lay and where birds are hatched, eggs need collecting several times a day to avoid damage and reduced hatchability.  Where incubation of the eggs is undertaken, close attention is essential and the machines must be checked every few hours. The keeper must always be close by and a good system will include an alarm to the house, to alert the keeper if an incubator has developed a fault. Immediate attendance is then essential or several thousand eggs may be lost.

In early May the eggs hatch and from that time on, the welfare of the birds on the shoot is paramount. Young birds are transferred to rearing huts and reared either under gas or ‘electric hens' to maintain warmth.  Water and food must be available at all times and hut ventilation must be adjusted regularly during the day as outside temperatures fluctuate. If this is not done, birds that are too hot or too cold are prone to pile up in corners and suffocate.  In the early weeks and in tricky weather conditions, regular checking may well have to continue throughout the night. Health and safety is another important issue, particularly where gas is used for heating, and frequent checks of equipment as well as birds are essential. Security is a factor too, because young gamebirds are increasingly targeted by thieves. For all these reasons, in circumstances where a gamekeeper is rearing his own birds, living close to the rearing field is an absolute necessity.

In June, July and August, the young pheasants and partridge are released into release pens in woods or the wider countryside. Ducks are released onto ponds, lakes and rivers. Several batches may be released over a period of time and whilst in the pens they must by law be inspected at least once a day and provided with fresh food and water. It is also essential to ensure that predators are not entering the pens, so the daily round of trap checking and pest shooting continues throughout these months.

As the birds leave the pens and move out on to the rest of the farm, the gamekeeper must provide feed daily, either by scattering grain or by keeping special feed hoppers round the farm topped up. This work continues from September throughout the winter and beyond until natural food becomes available once more the following spring.

Shoot days, which take place from September to January, require early starts and late finishes. The gamekeeper must prepare the drives and the transport, co-ordinate the work of beaters, pickers-up, and flankers, and ensure correct procedures for meat hygiene. At the end of the day the shot birds must be sorted and prepared for the game dealer. Some shoots also process their own game, or some of it, for sale locally.

Most gamekeepers are also responsible for the safe and effective management of the wild deer population on their patch, culling animals throughout the year with high-powered rifles according to the season and the age and species structure of the population. This can be a daily task but even where it is not, its efficacy is greatly increased by daily observation of the wild deer herds, their location and condition.

Dogs are an essential tool for the gamekeeper, for finding and flushing birds on shoot days, retrieving shot game and also in deer and pest control. To meet Defra's welfare guidance and to be readily to hand, a gamekeeper's dogs really need to be on site with the gamekeeper.  Theft of valuable, trained working dogs is increasing and for all these reasons gun dogs cannot be left unattended safely for long periods.

Poaching is on the increase too and has been identified by the Government as a wildlife crime priority. Gamekeepers are the front line defence against poaching but to be effective, they clearly need to be on site as much as possible. Poachers soon learn to target the shoots where the gamekeepers are known to reside off the patch.

The work of the gamekeeper, outlined above, necessitates long and irregular working hours. The shorter the distance the keeper has to travel to his work, the less time is wasted, the more efficiently he can do his job and the safer he is (eg. not traveling on public roads after long hours have already been worked and in cold, wet weather). Close proximity of home to work is a huge advantage. Being outside in all weathers day and night makes being near to home a requirement of good employment practice. 

In summary, a gamekeeper's job is hard work and hands-on. The law requires daily attendance to many tasks and at certain times of year hourly checking of birds will be necessary. The effective keeper is the one who spends most or all of his time on his patch, attending to his work and keeping an eye on the wildlife and the happenings around him. Living accommodation on the shoot in question is by far the best way of providing for all these needs and ensuring that animal welfare regulations, health and safety considerations and working hours legislation are all adhered to. Efficient gamekeeping is important to the countryside as a whole and to the economics of rural communities.