Game bird producers angered by welfare attacks

Farmers, gamekeepers and landlords united yesterday in condemnation of a new Defra code of practice for hatching and rearing pheasant and partridge.

They said it had been altered since they last saw a draft and had ended up as "nonsense" and "unworkable" .

But the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), representing 130,000 members, said it was time to stop the industry's drift into factory farming practices which its members did not like and which the general public would like even less.

The BASC's support for the usual animal welfarists persuaded Defra to recommend the kind of conditions which apply to poultry farmers – including a minimum space for every bird.

Also influential in the Defra decision – made by farming and animal welfare minister Jim Fitzpatrick – was a consultants' report revealing that shooting in the UK has grown to require as many young pheasants as the supermarket eggs industry needs laying hens.

Yorkshire has its share of this booming business but the grouse shoots of the high Pennines and North York Moors are not part of it as all grouse still grow wild.

Pheasants and partridges for shooting are released months before they are hunted but some birds are kept in cages permanently, to produce eggs and chicks.

Defra says pheasants should have a square metre each; grey partridges 0.5 square metres per bird; and red-leg partridges 0.29 sq. metres. And "bits", plastic baffles which stop young birds closing their beaks on each other's feathers, should not be used routinely – which they are at the moment.

The rules will apply to 7,500 premises rearing 50 or more gamebirds a year in England including a few large farms producing up to three million eggs a year each.

Although not legally enforceable, the code will be influential if it is approved by Parliament as Defra asks, to come into force this October. The customers – shooters and shoppers – will be asked to insist on its standards.

The National Gamekeepers Organisation said the code was a "dog's dinner", the Game Farmers Association said it was "a mess" while the Country Land and Business Association branded it "unworkable".