Pest deer on private property.

Problem deer on private property....What would you pay and what would you charge financially?

Perhaps some of us have met rural property owners who have problem deer on their property and want to get rid of 1...2...3...4...5 deer or whatever. What would be a fair price to pay a deer shooter to get them disposed of?

If you are running a professional pest deer shooting business what would you charge per animal or time involved.
Allowing time to travel there....to do the work required....and travelling back to you base. Total time say 10 hours labour.

What would be a fair price per hour or animal?

Forget about comments of doing it for nothing you are running a business with overheads, expenses etc
Every thing is done legally, safely and properly.

I suspect the farmer will have plenty of options to get deer shot for free, so that's what you're competing against, and that will strongly influence the price you can charge. As a land owner with wild deer on my farm, I know I could find responsible recreational hunters to cull a few if I wanted a few culled (which I don't).

My comment isn't suggesting that you should do it for nothing, just that you are competing against others who will.

whos the farmer ? Ill ask him for you. lol

How long is a piece of string?

If you're planning on setting this up as a business you cannot have a "fixed price" your time will vary from job to job. You could have a low "kill" price. which is like a small bonus for you on a job well done. Otherwise I'd be charging out an hourly rate, which would cover your time, fuel, vehicle and gear expenses/ maintenance. Although initially you might have a good cull, but you sell yourself as maintaining the pressure on the herd as well. depending on the scale of damage get them to book you in to come back and do another sweep. You might go back to the property and not get as many but your time is covered in your hourly rate and the pressure is maintained.

If you have an ATV or Quad are they set up as per OSH regulations for commercial usage on farms? are you taking offal away? If you're operating it as a business what is your plan with the meat after, plan to sell to distribute you might want to look into MAF regulations for sale and consumption, etc.

I think you have to balance out the revenue you can gain from selling them for pet food, along with your overheads and investment in gear......also skill level.
I know if I was paying per deer shot or by the hour I would want the best bang for buck I could get, and also want someone to clean up as many as possible, not just a few and educate the rest to be wary of hunters/people etc.
I only know one professional culler and I'm sure part of his business relies on selling the meat for pet food as part of the cost consideration.
No one runs a business at a loss for long.

We charge by the hour
You may be able to structure things differently, but we found anything other than a hourly rate to get a bit messy,
If your trying to off set the cost selling for pet food, be a bit cautious as the margins are not that great and the demand isn’t always there.
Cheers

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Originally Posted by video hunter

Problem deer on private property....What would you pay and what would you charge financially?

Perhaps some of us have met rural property owners who have problem deer on their property and want to get rid of 1...2...3...4...5 deer or whatever. What would be a fair price to pay a deer shooter to get them disposed of?

If you are running a professional pest deer shooting business what would you charge per animal or time involved.
Allowing time to travel there....to do the work required....and travelling back to you base. Total time say 10 hours labour.

What would be a fair price per hour or animal?

Forget about comments of doing it for nothing you are running a business with overheads, expenses etc
Every thing is done legally, safely and properly.

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waro helicopters are the best bet to knock down numbers quickly and efficiently on private property - but not sure who is operating North Island - a friend in the Contract business has been doing heli shooting on a few propertys to reduce numbers - but there is culling and then theres hunting for sale meat or pet food and they are two different things - why -when I hunted as a culler we left most of the deer where they were shot and that is the right way to go about it - time wasted retrieving carcasses is time that could be spent shooting more deer - simple as that- you need to be hard hearted and practical about it - to spend time humping deer around one will soon get sick of that and you need good access with decent tracks -I know contract rates to employ experienced hunters was around $50 an hour - but for that you get very very experienced hunters with top dogs - and fit hunters - one could try a safari type operation with groups but skill levels will be either nill of feck all - if you did get permission ask for a koha for your costs and see how much work you might get - but North Island you have genuine competition from some very experienced out fits if the farmer has big pockets and can afford to pay

heli certainly makes sense, no idea what the cost per hour is but recenlty myself and @223nut watched on as a heli culler pinged over somewhere in the vicinity of 30ish deer on a neighbouring property to where we were hunting all in the space of probably 20 minutes (probably factor 1 hour including set up and pack up for the heli)....Heli certainly is effective

a heli cull with guys on ground picking up what can get to easily would just about have to be the best of both worlds....SOME gets recovered/utilised and MANY get culled in quick timespan. will still need followups from time to time no matter what is used..one thing is for sure,ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN GREEN RAIN.

With low number’s, getting a machine in at $1000 + per hour could work out rather expensive
And recovering a small amount of carcasses wouldn’t cover the machine costs
As Barry the hunter said unless you can get a vehicle to the animal it’s bloody hard work and at $2-3 per kg your making your money the hard way

We are already seeing a lot of helicopter shooting to waste. (and ground shooting) And we will se a lot more - especially with low carcass weight deer like fallow.
If I was still a cocky I would just get a chopper in for a few hours and tell them to go for it.

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Originally Posted by mick

With low number’s, getting a machine in at $1000 + per hour could work out rather expensive
And recovering a small amount of carcasses wouldn’t cover the machine costs
As Barry the hunter said unless you can get a vehicle to the animal it’s bloody hard work and at $2-3 per kg your making your money the hard way

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recovery for the recoverers to use themselves would be ideal.... just to have a LITTLE BIT less waste.

You'd be hard pushed to compete with a chopper, the neighbour's had 300 shot from a bird in few hours, even good ground crews couldn't do that in my experience.

Sent from my SM-S916B using Tapatalk

You would think given it's the 21st century, the chopper pilot or shooter could hit a mark on the gps to mark where the deer were shot, and a keen ground crew could go in ( obviously with land owners consent), and recover what meat they wanted and either give it to some food banks or hand it out to the needy.

The hardest job of any culling operation is meat recovery

Your first job is to strike hard and fast to avoid educating the pests

Meat recovery would be at the bottom of ground staffs list

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Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

The hardest job of any culling operation is meat recovery

Your first job is to strike hard and fast to avoid educating the pests

Meat recovery would be at the bottom of ground staffs list

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Yes. Thats what I meant by shooting to waste. Just get in there with a chopper and go full bore. A good culler doesn't looks back.

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Originally Posted by Tahr

Yes. Thats what I meant by shooting to waste. Just get in there with a chopper and go full bore. A good culler doesn't looks back.

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yes you are right Tahr - back before WW2 in early culling days they were required to skin the deer shot and dry the skins for sale to help with costs of operations -that did not last that long - powers that be soon realized that it was a waste of time and energy and the cullers were better of to just hunt - hunters can waste a lot of time stuffing around with carcasses and if herd reduction is the goal especially high numbers its wasted effort - I think in many areas we are at the point where it would be good to see hunters out in areas with high numbers shoot some to waste before coming out of bush especially hinds or does - I know that is anti to a lot of hunters but in some areas a good cull out to bring numbers down to healthy levels is what's required -

at this point in time I would be happy to just find a plurry deer to shoot.....stuffed if I know where they are all hiding,certainly not on the DOC blocks around this area.

ha not a fair situation is it hunting - one fallow block I hunt one can see up to 50 in an afternoon and owner limits me to 2 lol - place actually could do with a bit of a hard hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLOjs-kPyOw

Believe it or not this is private property on the WestCoast cycle way. They are even out in daylight

PRIVATE property is the operative words.......as long as they have nursery areas like that..the surrounding lands will get a trickle over effect.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

at this point in time I would be happy to just find a plurry deer to shoot.....stuffed if I know where they are all hiding,certainly not on the DOC blocks around this area.

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An old mate reckcond they climb trees in winter, never seen one myself but its probably the only place you havent looked MickyAttachment 229615

About a year ago around here 12 deer recovered per hour was supposedly cut off point to make money doing waro. People got to get used to the idea of thinning to waste. It seems wasteful but the compliance costs to recover animals makes it a tough call for ground based hunters. Remember, it’s breaking the rules to even give game meat away. Getting back to thinning to waste, a local station thinned 1300 animals to waste not too many years ago and is looking to do another 7-800 in the coming year. That’s how quick the numbers can build up. Personally I try to utilise as much meat as I can but if land owner wants thinning to waste as a priority I don’t have a problem, they got to do what they can to make a living/profit.

About 50% of my income is from animal control (possum, goat, fallow, pigs).

I charge an hourly rate + travel + ammunition + any other expenses.

Where possible I take a pic of the dead animals - not possums - and ensure they're not left on tracks or near waterways. No animals are recovered. No, you/your kid/your mate can't come with me and have a few shots.

No deer in mid canterbury,they all washed out to sea.

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Originally Posted by Trout

No deer in mid canterbury,they all washed out to sea.

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Pre-salted :yaeh am not durnk:.....on a serious note hope everyone is ok

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Originally Posted by dannyb

I think you have to balance out the revenue you can gain from selling them for pet food, along with your overheads and investment in gear......also skill level.
I know if I was paying per deer shot or by the hour I would want the best bang for buck I could get, and also want someone to clean up as many as possible, not just a few and educate the rest to be wary of hunters/people etc.
I only know one professional culler and I'm sure part of his business relies on selling the meat for pet food as part of the cost consideration.
No one runs a business at a loss for long.

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https://www.newsroom.co.nz/deer-devi...the-deep-south

A bit off topic topic but if a farmer ask you to shoot hinds only do it don't pack a shit to the farmer about it. I know a few farmers in my area that got pissed off with recreational hunters not following the hinds only rule so just closed the hunting off & get the copper in cull to waste

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Originally Posted by dannyb

I think you have to balance out the revenue you can gain from selling them for pet food, along with your overheads and investment in gear......also skill level.
I know if I was paying per deer shot or by the hour I would want the best bang for buck I could get, and also want someone to clean up as many as possible, not just a few and educate the rest to be wary of hunters/people etc.
I only know one professional culler and I'm sure part of his business relies on selling the meat for pet food as part of the cost consideration.
No one runs a business at a loss for long.

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If it’s who I think it is, it’s definitely a lifestyle not a decent money maker. Majority of income comes from selling for pet food.

Remember you need to get all your H&S bits in order and your insurances. cant just rock up and shoot if running a business

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Originally Posted by McNotty

If it’s who I think it is, it’s definitely a lifestyle not a decent money maker. Majority of income comes from selling for pet food.

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Doubt it is who you think it is.