Ready for the 2022 season, a group of specialist Gamebird Vets from across the UK have launched TRUSTED GAME, a simple audit-based scheme to ensure the health and welfare of gamebirds on Shoots and Game Farms. Developed by the Vets working in partnership with their Gamekeeper and Game Farming clients through 2021, and incorporating tried and tested systems from other industries, the TRUSTED GAME p
roject provides a route to achieving high standards through a simple auditing process linked to training and real-world solutions to problems identified. Shooting is coming together with some great initiatives, and there has never been a better time for this project, and for everyone to get involved. We all have to recognise that government is looking for us to evolve a workable system of self-regulation for game rearing and releasing in the UK. Vets Rita Alves of Daltons Game Consultancy, Mark Elliott of South Downs Veterinary Consultancy and Dan King of Sandhill Veterinary Services, looked at other animal production systems, where it is normal for the Vets to be involved in the auditing and setting of standards and set things in motion. Trusted Game aims to avoid an unnecessary, complicated or expensive system imposed from outside, and instead provide a route for fair, equitable self-regulation. As gamebird vets already have close links with their clients, TRUSTED GAME is intended as an inexpensive straightforward ‘add on’ to the services they already provide. Evidence led, TRUSTED GAME acknowledges that there is no one size that fits all due to the diversity and nature of all those projects and businesses involved in Game. Feedback from the trial participants has been overwhelmingly positive, with Owners, Agents and Keepers all enthusiastically backing the scheme
The TRUSTED GAME project is open to any vets in the UK who work with game and is therefore available to all shoots and game farms around the country. For more information contact Rita, Mark or Dan, or email to [email protected]
