Good keepering sits behind every successful shoot, whether it’s a let day on a big estate or a small DIY syndicate. Our gamekeeping section covers the whole of the keeper’s year, starting with game rearing – sourcing eggs and poults, running the rearing field, and getting pheasants, partridges and ducks through the release pen and holding them once they’re out.
It goes well beyond the birds. You’ll find practical advice on predator and pest control, including trapping and the general licences, and on habitat work such as cover crops, hedgerows, woodland and moorland management. We also cover feeding, water, biosecurity and disease, along with deer management, working dogs and the rules that shape how shoots are run.
It’s all written by working keepers, game farmers and the Shooting Times team, for professional and amateur keepers alike. Alongside it you’ll find the latest gamekeeping news and our reviews of the kit that makes the job easier.
From the shoot to the kitchen table, pulling together and saying thanks matters more than ever, says Helen Benson of the Gamekeepers' Welfare Trust
Holkham head keeper Mark Fitzer on why lone-working safety comes first, why keepers should talk about what they do, and a first go at the grey partridges
Every shoot must now be able to prove it is run lawfully and responsibly, argues the NGO's John Clarke – from release pens and licences to the game larder
Dylan Williams of Eat Wild on why every bird shot must be treated as food from the moment it falls – and how Guns can help build the market for it
Recent droughts and heatwaves have hit gamebirds hard, but careful habitat management can help them survive, says the GWCT's Alex Keeble
'Gamekeeper trained' was once a selling point in the classified columns, and Jeremy Hobson remembers the keepers whose spaniels and labradors earned it
Mink wreak havoc along our rivers, so trapping them is a job that should never be neglected, whatever else the shoot demands, says Dorset keeper Mike Appleby
Lindsay Waddell on grouse that fetch less per brace than 50 years ago, wildfires on the moor and a rural life misunderstood – though the summer still found room for a grandson's first trout
Laurence Catlow on a trouble-free release at High Park, and why caring for 325 pheasant poults has proved such strong medicine for a man recovering in mind and body
The keeper’s wife is chef, nurse, PR officer and calmer of tempers, and many a shoot day would fall apart without her. Sue Knight on a life of ups and downs
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