REMOVING YOUNG PHEASANTS TO COVERT 



age for removing the birds to the covert. It is impossible 

 to lay down any hard and fast law concerning this, because 

 so much will depend upon circumstances. 



The condition of the birds, the state of the weather, 

 the arrangement of the coverts, the district, and many other 

 circumstances, have to be taken into consideration. All 

 these troubles never occur where birds are hatched and 

 reared under natural conditions, but as the present state of 

 game preservation does not admit of this, where a large head 

 of game has to be reared, the keeper has to devise other plans 

 and make the most of that which is placed at his disposal. 



If the birds are well forward and the weather propitious 

 the sooner they are removed to the coverts the better, other- 

 wise a difficulty will be experienced in getting them into the 

 coops. All practical game-rearers believe in leaving the birds 

 out of the covert as long as possible. When the rearing-ground 

 is situated by the covert side, the matter is simplified, but it is 

 not every game-rearer that is thus favourably situated. If the 

 birds are left too long before being shifted, they begin to 

 wander, and either get lost or else are destroyed by vermin. 



The best time for shifting the coops is at night, so that 

 after they have been transferred to the covert side, the 

 young birds will have time to settle down again before 

 dawn. In shifting the coops from the rearing-field various 

 plans are adopted, but one in general use is shown in the 

 accompanying photograph, which depicts a sack being 

 gradually drawn beneath the coop, and when underneath 

 it, the edges are tacked round the side of it so as to form 

 an artificial bottom. It is then lifted into the cart or 

 conveyed in some other way to the covert. Two coops 

 can be carried to the covert side on an improvised stretcher, 

 but when the covert is a considerable distance from the 

 rearing-field, the most expeditious manner is to employ a 



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