The hind season closed last week and we have now had a chance to tally up the numbers. We have pretty cautious this year about culling hinds because it is clear that the calving rate will not be high (about 20%, we estimate) and many neighbouring estates are reporting low deer numbers. We ended up with 19 red hinds and 7 calves, a number of them orphans. We also culled 12 sika hinds and 3 calves.

I would have liked us to shoot more sika but when we were out looking for them we could not consistently get into them. They don’t like wet weather and slip in to the woods where they are very difficult to track down. Next year we shall to get at them rather harder, probably at the start of the season.