How keepers will nurture change
“Could Flea Barn wash its face financially as a wild bird shoot?”
I asked my business partner Richard Gould as we partook of our usual lunchtime break from laying a Flea Barn hedge — philosophising, watching for grey partridges and munching our packed lunches seated on our trucks’ tailgates. His reply was delivered in the usual to-the-point way: “No, we’d need another 500 acres.”
I paused for thought and a mouthful of sausage roll. “Not even if we put a covey or two of greys over paying Guns?” I persisted.
“No,” Richard responded. “We’ll be grey ourselves before we have a shootable surplus.”
Such is the pragmatism of a wild bird keeper; it is in their nature. There are no guarantees with wild birds: the wrong weather, a loose dog, a rogue badger, and all is for nought. Wild birds
