NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS: WEALDEN GAME FARM
PAST, PHEASANT
AND FUTURE This month Nigel Akehurst visits Wealden Game Farm at Court Lodge Farm in Burwash to meet founder Paul Smith and his wife Yvette and learn more about their flourishing game business.
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I met Paul Smith and his wife Yvette at Court Lodge Farm, located just off the Etchingham Road on the outskirts of Burwash. The 95-acre mainly grassland farm is home to their two businesses; Wealden Game Farm – a well-established and successful pheasant rearing operation – and Wealden Game, a venison enterprise set up more recently after the couple bought the farm in 2018. In addition to game, Paul keeps a small herd of 30 Pedigree Sussex cows, which he says are more of a hobby "as they make no money". The main enterprise is the “pheasant job,” he said. It’s a business that has grown significantly over the 12 years since he founded it. On average Paul and Yvette now rear and supply around 225,000 game birds to customers in the South East (Sussex, Kent and Surrey) along with a few highprofile estates in Yorkshire and Dorset.
BACKGROUND
Before starting the business, Paul spent 25 years working in the game industry, firstly as an under keeper in the late 1980s and then going on to be head keeper and shoot manager on a number of prestigious shooting estates. He learned the trade from egg production through to incubation, rearing and release. With a wealth of experience and knowledge under his belt, he set up Wealden Game Farm in his late thirties. This turned out to be a shrewd move. According to the Game Farmers’ Association, more than 60 million birds are bred for shooting each year on Britain’s 300 game farms, in an industry that is worth more than £2bn annually.
WEALDEN GAME FARM
With good connections, Paul soon had customers knocking on his door to order
JANUARY 2022 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET
pheasants. He rented land locally to set up his rearing field, erecting brooding sheds where the birds are initially kept inside before being given access to the outdoors in netted pens. “It’s a very seasonal job, which typically starts in April and finishes by early August. All pheasant orders for the coming season are taken by February,” he said. Eggs are then bought and hatched in a specific hatchery in Cambridge. In mid-April his team starts the job of setting up the rearing field, a military-like operation that involves erecting dozens of brooding sheds and netted pens. It’s an impressive operation that when fully built covers 15 acres. The first batch of day-old chicks arrives at the end of April and it takes on average between six and a half to seven weeks to rear the poults, explained Paul. Looking after the birds is a highly labour
