shooting woodpegeons in garden

[janeyo]

I know this has been covered before for allotments but this is in our (large) garden.

There are woods beyond us, and full of woodpigeons - bloody great things waddling about almost too heavy to fly, eating my plants and all the food I put out for the smaller birds. Hubby has decided that it would be a great idea to shoot some and eat them.

I am not totally against this in principal (even though I am a veggie, it's important to let the children know where their food comes from etc and we are also thinking of some chickens for the pot - have only had layers for years)

My main worry would be that a) hubby might not be a very good shot. He has never shot anything! I did some at school but that was years ago - and I was quite a good shot then but would hate to think we had wounded one and not killed it and it flew off etc.

Also, how hard is it to actually hit it? I assume it needs to be a kill in the head? From what sort of distance? We have a playhouse in the garden where we could hide out so would be about 20 feet from the birds.

The last thing would be if they had young in a nest, I am not sure how comfortable I would be thinking there were baby birds left starving. Is there a better time of year to shoot them?

How easy is it to gut, clean, pluck etc?

Is this feasible? Or has hubby gone gun-nut crazy!

Thoughts please.

[endymion]

There are woods beyond us, and full of woodpigeons - bloody great things waddling about almost too heavy to fly, eating my plants and all the food I put out for the smaller birds. Hubby has decided that it would be a great idea to shoot some and eat them.

We checked this out a while ago, but we weren't really serious because it didn't seem entirely fair to try to kill something for doing what comes naturally, even though they'd eaten all our brassicas. What we read made us decide to buy some netting instead, it seemed the far easier option.

I saved the links, so it's easy to pass them on.

There are guidelines here at BASC, and at the bottom of the page is the downloadable "Woodpigeon Shooting Code of Practice."

There's a discussion here, which includes debating the rule that you cannot shoot nuisance pigeons for the pot, not even if you've tried and failed to drive them away from your carefully tended brassicas, and you can't be sure the neighbours won't complain, or claim that they've found pellets in their garden etc etc..

[rana]

The most effective way to dispatch a wood pigeon is with a clean shot to the chest. When the pigeon is facing towards you the chest is a fair sized target. Do not try and hit it from the side or through the wing as this is only likely to injure it.

No need to pluck, just cut through the skin up from the vent towards the chest taking care not to sever the guts. With a still warm pigeon you should then be able to peel the skin off. The pigeon breast is the meaty bit and relatively easy to remove. It is barely worth faffing about beyond that.

[chris]

There are a lot of videos about it on youtube too..

[Newton]

I was hoping to make some wood pigeon wellington as a starter. Just an idea? Has anyone tried it before?

[vicky]

If you shoot them over your land you can easily get them to check they are dead and if nec dispatch by hand. We just cut the breast off to eat.
I think a lot depends on the gun used - the chap who shot ours had £500 worth of gun plus £200 sight (or so he boasted!) - that's a lot of pigeons! He did it for a living. Looking down the sight even I would have been able to hit something it was so good!

[janeyo]

Thanks all that is very useful.

Hubby hasn't got a gun, he was going to borrow my dads air rifle to start to see if he can actually do the deed. This saves actually spending any money.
If we shoot through the chest doesn't this mess the breast meat up?

[Florence Fennel]

I'm very interested in this, my son is very partial to pigeon and he was eyeing some up in my garden the other day. I haven't given too much thought to it up until seeing this thread.

[Marc]

janeyo, you should NOT shoot in a chest, unless you mean you are going to have proper firearm rather than air rifle.

If you shoot using air rifle ALWAYS aim head. One shot is enough, you can shoot the pigeon from about 30 yards, what should be enough for any type of garden. Keep in mind - don't shoot when it flies, just when it sits on the branch.

[chris]

Hope your neighbours have tin hats then!

[Chef_uk]

Top thread. Was totally expecting it to turn in to a dogooders vs everyone else You peeps surprise me more and more. Great info too. Would love to hear how your husband gets on Janeyo.

[miker2d2]

i shoot some with a .177 air rifle, i always aim for the head. I would practice until you are confident of hitting a 50p at the range you will be shooting. (the pellet will drop over a longer range) i zero the scope to my prefered target range and then use bait to get the pigeons there. you will need a decent air rifle close to the maximum legal limit

i pluck the breast area and then cut them out, i eat mine medium rare like you would a duck. they are delish

ps may be obvious but make sure you know where the pellet is going, it will probably go all the way through (and you may miss)

[janeyo]

Thanks all

I will let you know how we get on