An Introduction to Game Attractants
One of the most frustrating problems for gamekeepers is being forced every year to watch as pheasants which have been painstakingly reared into poults wander away from their rearing woods and into the cover of neighbouring ground. In an area where there are a number of shoots in operation, you will usually gain as many birds as you lose from your neighbours, but a shoot in isolation will suffer a depressing drain of birds throughout the shooting season.
A good gamekeeper has a number of different methods to keep his birds on his patch, but one of the most effective methods is to treat the pheasant food with a pungent herb or spice. Attractants have been used by generations of gamekeepers, and at one time, every man had his own jealously guarded recipe for success.
A key ingredient for these formulas was aniseed, and modern techniques have capitalised on extracting anethole, the smelly compound contained in aniseed so that it can be used commercially.
Pheasants have a well established affection for aniseed, and you can use this to your advantage by mixing an oily solution of aniseed in with wheat, barley or pellets. Some of the strongest and most pungent aniseed oil can be found in liquid Concentrate Form, which can either be poured directly onto wheat or pheasant feed or wiped around the inside of a feed bin before grain is added. You can also spray this solution onto feed using a Finger Pump Spray Dispenser.
Many of our aniseed products are so powerful that they can be diluted with vegetable oils without losing their rich and pungent aromas. Even a well diluted solution of aniseed oil will be enough to give pheasants an attractive treat, and a little goes a long way with some of the more concentrated brands of attractant. We supply aniseed oils prediluted in 5 Litre Tubs, but mixing your own solution is easy and cost effective.
As a variation on a theme, some attractants are supplied in powder form, with a complex and secret list of ingredients. Gamekeep Bird Puller Powder is easily stirred in to feed or grain to provide an alluring scent, and this product is proving to be more and more popular amongst customers every year.
By spraying attractants onto feed or mixing it with powders, you will see a visible increase in interest amongst your birds, and even pheasants which have wandered over from your neighbours’ land will want to stay in your woods around your feeders.
