Each season, Philip and Sara breed around 2,500 hen birds, while partridges are hatched off from eggs sourced from a closed flock in the UK. Throughout the middle of winter and the latter end of the shooting season, birds are fed on wheat. Aside from this, the business feeds Sportsman Game Feeds throughout, to both breeding stock and hatched birds.
For breeding pheasants, the 3.2mm 13% protein Sportsman Pre-Breeder is fed at the beginning of spring, before moving onto the 3.2mm 17.5% Breeder Pellet throughout the breeding season. The Sportsman Breeder range is designed to meet the nutritional requirements of laying pheasants and partridge. Containing key minerals, vitamins and enzymes, it helps support birds prior to the breeding season for higher levels of fertility, and support maximum levels of productivity, encouraging high egg production, hatchability and shell quality.
“The first focus for us is ensuring the pheasants are fit and healthy ahead of laying, so we feed the Pre-Breeder, as well as the Breeder Range.” Philip explains.
“We aim to ensure the birds are in prime, lean condition, with bright legs and beaks. If birds are healthy and fertility levels are high, we benefit as a business, with a larger number of high-quality eggs.”
Philip and Sarah begin setting out in April and starting hatching chicks off in May, over a ten-week period. Getting chicks off to a good start is a priority for Philip and Sara, opting to feed the Sportsman Starter Range to enhance the immune response and development of hatching chicks. We have developed our Starter Range to encourage feed intake and support early growth, with optimum levels of protein and amino acids, along with trace elements and vitamins, at this critical stage of the bird’s life. Following on from this, our Grower Range supports continued good growth and feathering, with high quality proteins and balanced mineral levels, trace elements and vitamins, to help develop good bone strength for long-term performance.
Pheasant chicks at Carr Game are started on the Fine Starter Crumb at 28% protein up to two weeks of age, before moving onto the Starter Micro Crumb for a further two weeks. At four weeks of age, they move onto the Sportsman Grower No.1 3.2mm at 23.5% protein, then the release pellet for a further few days before they leave the farm. The Sportsman Release Pellet is lower in protein than the Grower pellet, and helps poults through the transitional release stage by balancing the diet to allow for other food sources. Once released, Philip continues to feed this, before migrating over to wheat, when suitable.
Partridge chicks are started on the Fine Starter Crumb at 28% protein up to three weeks of age. If, in some years, they hatch any grey partridges, they would feed a Super Fine Crumb. From this, they move onto the Starter Micro Crumb for another three weeks. At 7-8 weeks of age, the partridge move onto the Sportsman Grower No.2 3.2mm at 20% protein, and remain on this until they leave the farm.
“Partridges require more protein in the earlier weeks, which is why they’re kept on the higher protein crumb from the starter range for a few more weeks than pheasants,” explains Philip.
“I usually follow the Sportsman feeding guidelines as baseline, but the birds are often very strong, so I also look at it by eye – if they could benefit from moving onto the next step in the range, I will do so.”
Philip and Sara have been Sportsman customers for six years - having fed some Sportsman Game Feed in previous roles and businesses, they moved fully onto Sportsman when they started Carr Game in East Yorkshire.
“For us, it is very much a case of quality over quantity,” explains Philip.
“We aim to produce the fittest pheasants in country, and we feed the best we can afford to feed within our budgets. The Breeder Range performs well – the breeding flock are healthy, we get good numbers of eggs and the hatched birds are healthy and strong, so I believe it’s worth what we pay.”
“Previous suppliers we have used in the past are similarly priced, but with Sportsman, we know the quality and performance will be great every time,” he adds.
“Pellet quality is consistently high, with no dust – it’s a good clean pellet.”
Birds are mostly sold locally to shoots of varying of sizes throughout East Yorkshire, with some going a little further afield.
“Shoots range from a few hundred to one thousand-bird days. Some shoot more regularly, multiple times per week, and some will shoot once a fortnight. But, most importantly, the birds are nice and strong and I’ve been told they fly well,” adds Philip.
“Looking to the future, we plan to expand the business further, and keep improving. We enjoy working with Sportsman Game Feeds, and being involved in trial work provides us with a better understanding of the importance of high-performing feed, enabling us to keep moving forward.”
Philip works with Sportsman account manager Murray Brown, as well as our game nutritionist Dr Laura Faller, with whom he works closely to conduct Sportsman feed research trials each year.
Laura has been involved in Sportsman feed trials with Carr Game for six years. Past trials have included rearer trials looking at alternatives to support the reduction in antibiotics, and, separately, the inclusion of butyrate, plus breeder trials exploring fishmeal replacements.”
In 2023, Carr Game conducted a Sportsman breeder trial, which examined the performance of a selected pigment. The addition of this pigment in breeder diets claims to improve fertility, embryonic survival and hatchability, as well as more successful egg storage and healthier chicks.
“We undertake continued research and trial work to ensure we are continuing to offer high performing feed to the game industry,” explains Laura.
“Trialling feed ingredients enables us to understand the cost benefits and viability of these being included in the feed, and the potential benefits and improvements it could bring to our customers.”
“We never sit still. We look to ensure we are always moving forward and trialling new opportunities, even if the results mean we don’t adopt them in our feed mills.”
With feed produced at the dedicated Sportsman feed mill at Walsingham in Norfolk, the trials started in March 2023. The selected pigment was added to the Sportsman 3.2mm 17.5% breeder pellet and fed to all three breeds present at Carr Game - Blackneck, Bazanty, and crosses between the two breeds. Data was collected from eight pens over the course of 12 weeks, including up to the point of lay, the laying period, egg incubation and hatching stage. For the Blackneck pheasants there was one control pen and one trial pen, the trial also monitored one control and one trial pen of the Bazanty breed, and there were two control pens and two trial pens of the crosses. Unfortunately, the trials experienced poor weather, with muddy and wet conditions badly affecting two trial sheds and one control shed.
Commenting on the trials, Laura explained “It was a difficult breeding period with some very unpleasant conditions, which likely affected some of the results. Despite this, we really value the involvement of Philip and Sara at Carr Game – even in the poor weather conditions, their attention to detail and data collection is extremely accurate.”
Overall breeder mortality was slightly higher on the trial group, and more variable.
Laura goes on to explain: “While hen mortality was relatively comparable, cock mortality was 3.2% higher in the trial group. Cock to hen ratio was 1:8 for all pens at the start of the season, but due to higher mortality in the cocks, from around week three, the hen ratio was higher in the trial group than the control.”
Weight loss over the breeding season was comparable for both treatments; ~1.4% of the starting body weight. On average, hens in the trial group lost an insignificant 2g more body weight over the breeding period, which Laura believes may be due to the higher number of eggs produced. Overall feed intake was higher in the control group than the trial group, amounting to approximately 9 bags, or 200g more per bird.
Egg collection was plotted each week, with birds in the trial group consistently producing a noticeable amount of eggs per week after week three. In total, 1,518 more eggs were collected from the trial group than the control, but this also brought more variety, which was mostly seen in the trial pen of pure-bred Bazanty pheasants.
“Throughout the course of the trial, we collected a noticeably lower number of eggs from the Bazanty breed than other breeds in the trial group. They were also smaller eggs, but with better colour and hardness than the rest of the trial pens.”
“It is difficult to understand the reasons behind this, but perhaps more settled conditions could have meant more consistent eggs,” Laura suggests.
Egg quality was comparable for the trial and control groups, but more variance was noticed in one control and one trial pen. Softer and paler eggs were also seen in the Bazanty pens from the seventh week. Clear eggs (those that do not contain a developing embryo) were 1% higher in the trial group, but despite this, the total hatch percentage was comparable between the trial and control groups, with higher hatch percentages in the trial groups for the blackneck breed and crossbreed birds, but lower within the Bazanty breed.
The overall conclusion of the trials is that, with the inclusion of the selected pigment in the feed, less feed was required to produce the same number of hatched chicks. The trial has also highlighted the significant breeder performance between different breeds.
“The difficult weather conditions led to higher-than-expected mortality rates, and dirtier eggs, which may have contributed to more cracks due to washing,” Laura suggests.
“If we had a drier season, we would perhaps see more benefits from the trial, and perhaps less variance. I would like to repeat the trial in the 2024 season, to see if this is the case.”