Pheasant Shooting
A long time ago, as as part of my UK/Euro life experience, I worked as a farm-hand on a very nice farm in Berkshire. The owners were a nice couple. I lived in their house and in addition to working a full week, would generally help out on weekends.

One Sunday, Mr Farmer decided he wanted to show me some English traditional country life, so we trotted off to shoot a pheasant. The local "wild" pheasants were pretty tame, they wandered around the paddocks, eating wheat grains, occasionally stopping to inquisitively cock their heads at you as you buzzed past on the tractor.

So we wandered down to the wheat paddock, and sure enough, there was Mr Pheasant, cruising around, pecking at the ground, having a pretty happy pheasanty time of it all.

Mr Farmer wouldn't let me use the gun, which was a bit of a disappointment to me, as I have shot many animals my childhood (rabbits, wallabies) and I respect guns and the role they play in harvesting food (and the damage they can inflict).

Instead, my role was to be the "Beater". "Oh...righto, no worries", I thought, "I'm expected to beat the cunt to death", and approached the pheasant with a large stick.

But no,no,no...as quickly explained with a hint of panic, the beater's role is to make a ruckus and flush the birds out of hiding.

"But the bird's not hiding. He's standing right next to us, listening to the conversation regarding his imminent death. Why dont you shoot him now?"

"Well jolly well make him fly. That's your role. We should do this properly"

So I asked the pheasant nicely: "Mr Pheasant, can you fly, so this bloke can revel in the true spirit of game shooting and blast you out of the sky?"

"Fuck off mate, I'm perfectly happy eating wheat", thinks Mr Pheasant, carrying on pecking the ground.

So, after some mild disagreement regarding shooting methodology, I coax the pheasant over to us with a few wheat grains, pick him up and hurled him up into the air. He fluttered for a bit and made to land back down into the field.

Within a micro-second Mr Farmer was blasting away like a lunatic, deploying the "blast away like fuck, something will get hit" method of game shooting. I did note at the time that there was little regard for the Beater's proximity in relation to the direction of the barrel.

After few seconds of very loud madness, the remains of a badly mangled pheasant plopped next to me as I cowered for cover in a bare field, and I can safely say the poor bugger didn't know what hit him, such was the volume of lead in his system.

We collected most of the scraps and returned to the farm, me vowing never to go near Mr. Farmer when he was in possession of a gun.

I was looking forward to trying my first pheasanat, but rather than eat it straight away, Mr Pheasant was hung by the neck, still with his guts intact, for Two Weeks!! By the time Mr.Farmer deemed it was "hung" enough to eat, the fucking thing was glowing green, utterly putrid, it's skin was starting to slough onto the floor and it was weeping a foul ooze out of it's arse. I helped to get him ready for the pot, but the smell was so bad it made me retch and I vowed not to eat the fucking thing.

So, I have yet to try pheasant. Next time I'll buy it from a shop.
( Ken Oath, Fri 25 May 2012, 4:22, 13 replies)

Oh, go on then, I'll be first
"dessicated" isn't the word you're looking for (firstly because it doesn't mean what I think you think it means, and secondly because it should have only one 's' and a double 'c').

Have a good weekend y'all.
( Ghoti Fingers, Fri 25 May 2012, 7:38, closed)

thanks.
I'll edit accordingly. Will "mangled" do?
( Ken Oath, Fri 25 May 2012, 7:40, closed)

Or
decimated?

Mangled works though too.
(Samantha Bricks Better half done a poo on, Fri 25 May 2012, 7:54, closed)

Shredded?

( Ken Oath, Fri 25 May 2012, 8:15, closed)

This is almost
slapstick. Very good.

I used to beat Pheasants for a bit of pocket money when I was a teenager. My neigbour taught me how to pluck and gut one.

Tip: Do not, and I can't stress this enough, do NOT burst the colon of a pheasant when you're removing it. It is normally full of astonishingly smelly shit.
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 May 2012, 8:48, closed)

I used to beat Pheasants for a bit of pocket money when I was a teenager
Do they pay well?
(Smale is stuffed, Fri 25 May 2012, 8:56, closed)

It isn't really a question of what they pay,
it's more a question of how much money they're carrying.
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 May 2012, 9:22, closed)

Better
than beating off pheasants for money, I suppose.
(Rsoles, Fri 25 May 2012, 11:05, closed)

Even if you buy it from a shop
it'll still have been hung for a while
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 25 May 2012, 10:07, closed)

but hopefully gutted.
Why would you leaves the guts in? I get the hanging thing, but 2 weeks seemed way too long. It was very soft to cut up though.
( Ken Oath, Fri 25 May 2012, 10:13, closed)

It adds to the flavour.
They can be hung for up to a month, depending on the temperature. But between 5 and 14 days is standard.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 25 May 2012, 11:55, closed)

The theory was/is that they hang by the neck until the body literally falls off and then it's ready.
Dubious seeing as it's normally in a shed. Pheasant is lovely though.
( SauronWibble I'll hold it, you lick it..., Fri 25 May 2012, 10:13, closed)

this was a very cold dairy.
Where the beer and cheese was also stored.
( Ken Oath, Fri 25 May 2012, 10:15, closed)

You didn't miss much
Pheasant is rubbish meat.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 25 May 2012, 16:04, closed)