Clean, safe, secure

We are not all blessed with large estates in Norfolk, where light soil and sun can maintain wild pheasants and partridges in number, producing a shootable and edible surplus.

But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t, wherever we are, try to apply the same principles that our wild bird shooting cousins do. Farming needs to be sympathetic and predator control kept up. One benefit of looking after game is, of course, that other fragile species thrive; turtle dove, yellowhammer and lapwing to name but a few.

Nonetheless, most of us will have to put down birds in one way or another. Poults or ex-layers are an option, but rearing is another. It’s not for the fainthearted but it does have a lot going for it, not least because