St David’s Gamebird Services work nationwide to ensure good health and welfare of gamebirds on shoots of all sizes. Here Dr Sam Morgan shares some insightful snippets from his life as a Welsh country vet...

From going out on site, visiting clients, sharing industry advice, and pioneering forward-thinking research, no day is the same.

In a week, I will often travel across the entirety of the Welsh countryside; from Chester to Anglesey down to Pembrokeshire, all along the south west of Wales, through Powys and beyond.

In doing so, us vets get to experience a real range of environments. The terrain in Wales changes around every corner so we have to bear in mind every shoot’s unique needs.

For example, the birds going to Snowdonia or the Brecon Beacons need to be reared to be much stronger flyers than elsewhere. This variation, alongside going out on site, working closely with game farmers to help them produce good healthy birds and maintain good welfare standards is why I enjoy my job so much.

Over the past weeks, we have been out doing a lot of routine visits on rearing sites, making sure that we have a look at every aspect of the rearing process from bird health, husbandry, temperatures, to set up, to products being used and more.

These routine visits are hugely beneficial as it gives us vets a weekly opportunity to spot any issues; the sooner we can catch a problem, the sooner we can deal with it meaning we can reduce mortality, medicine usage, and the birds recover faster.

This has been especially important this year, when there is a large focus on mitigating heat stress on the rearing fields with methods such as; checking and maintaining water quality and temperatures, giving them electrolytes in the water, house heating and ventilation, and trying to get the birds into cooler environments sooner and providing additional cover and enrichment in the runs.

Now, shoots and game farmers are starting to move birds out to wood, so there’s a lot of emphasis in making sure the final bird on the rearing field is good quality, free of disease, and looking at how best we can manage transferring the birds to wood with as little stress as possible.

This is also when we really start to see the positive impact of our pen scoring visits; where we visit clients and score each release pen with the aim of pinpointing any areas for improvement.

Pen scoring is integral to improving the overall health and welfare of the birds and it has become even more important in the context of bird flu.

We cover everything from husbandry to water and food distribution methods, to creating coverage in the pens in order to help keep the birds safe from things like heat and arial predators. This helps to create a good and safe environment for the birds.

I have a client here in Wales, for example, who we recently undertook some pen scoring with. We spent a good afternoon thoroughly inspecting all their pens and advised a lot of changes.

The main points from this visit were increasing cover for their birds to reduce attacks from aerial predators, which were a big issue with this shoot, and provide a bigger, better, safer environment for the birds so they don’t migrate too far.

Every farm or shoot is different; in size, location, and outlook, and we really take this into account.

In my opinion, no matter which site we are on, a healthy bird is a happy bird, and if you have good healthy birds, our shoots and farmers have businesses that are going to be successful.

I am proud to say that our clients adhere to brilliant welfare standards and generally, it’s been a good year so far for gamebird vets in Wales.