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Pesky pheasants

EnnylEnnyl Posts: 24
in Problem solving

Hi

Since removing overgrown laurel hedges last spring, my garden now seems to be a happy grazing area for pheasants - sometimes up to 20 at a time. Wallflowers, primulas, magnolia buds have all been eaten.

Any ideas how to deter and which spring plants should I plant for next year....?

Thanks

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Posts

  • pansyfacepansyface PEAK DISTRICT DerbyshirePosts: 21,246
    Tell me about it.

    I have a good mind to send the Duke of Rutland a bill for damage to my crops (and flowers). 

    They are as thick as two short planks. They have pecked the top off almost every daffodil bud in the garden. That’s into the hundreds. Hoping to find one that tastes acceptable, I suppose, and failing every time.

    The only thing you can do is train them to recognise you as a predator. Every time you see one, run out waving your arms wildly like a windmill, stamping your feet and howling obscenities at full volume.

    They will soon learn to skedaddle the moment your face appears at the window.

    And so will the neighbours.
    Apophthegm -  a big word for a small thought.
  • BrexiteerBrexiteer Birmingham Posts: 955
    Shoot them and put them in the freezer 
  • LynLyn DevonPosts: 21,143
    We have them, they escape from Sydenham woods where they have a shoot.  I quite like them,  they nest in the garden. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Central Norfolk UKPosts: 82,269
    edited March 2019
    Old Arthritic marc said:
    Shoot them and put them in the freezer 
    Season ended 1st Feb ... the penalty for shooting game out of season can be a fine and up to six months at Her Majesty’s Pleasure ... I take it you’re not a country dweller Old Arthritic marc 😉 
    “I am not lost, for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.” Winnie the Pooh







  • FairygirlFairygirl west central ScotlandPosts: 49,147
    Could be worse  - it could be pesky peasants. Definitely can't shoot them... ;)

    I loved them visiting our old garden. The rabbits already dictated what could be planted, and the pheasants didn't cause much damage as the chap across the road fed them They nested there.
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....


  • EnnylEnnyl Posts: 24
    Thanks all
    Surrounded by farms so don't think I can shoot them - in or out of season!
    Pansyface - you are so right about them being thick - and I have tried to shoo them but they look at me and go mweh.
    Guess I just need to try and put up some protection (chicken wire?) around key plants such as my magnolia stellata that has been completely ruined this spring......
  • wild edgeswild edges The north west of south east WalesPosts: 8,880
    Dovefromabove said:
    Old Arthritic marc said:
    Shoot them and put them in the freezer 
    Season ended 1st Feb ... the penalty for shooting game out of season can be a fine and up to six months at Her Majesty’s Pleasure ... I take it you’re not a country dweller Old Arthritic marc 😉 
    Makes no sense to me. They're just very free range chickens after all and the males don't lend a wing in raising the kids so shooting them is just pest control. Pigeons don't get a season free from the guns.
    Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people
  • raisingirlraisingirl East Devon, on the Edge of Exmoor.Posts: 6,330
    edited March 2019
    wild edges said:
    Makes no sense to me. They're just very free range chickens after all and the males don't lend a wing in raising the kids so shooting them is just pest control. Pigeons don't get a season free from the guns.
    It's because they are battery farmed in the first place and therefore 'owned' by whoever raised and released them. Therefore shooting them without permission is theft. If you went out with a gun to shoot them in season - round here, anyway - a game keeper would turn up at your door in very short order accusing you of poaching. But out of season, the keepers want to be elsewhere, doing their summer jobs, not policing their livestock while it grazes on my brassicas.

    They aren't too much of a problem here because they are scared of the dogs. They'll attack the car - nutters - but not the lurchers.
    “Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first” 
  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Derbyshire but with a Nottinghamshire postcode. Posts: 16,472
    I don't think the fox that took one in my garden was very bothered about the season, more worried about how to feed the cubs. He gave me a sort of nod as he trotted across the lawn with the pheasant in his jaws, as if to say "Ta, very much"
  • pansyfacepansyface PEAK DISTRICT DerbyshirePosts: 21,246
    May I borrow your fox, fidget?
    Apophthegm -  a big word for a small thought.
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