A game shooting organisation has condemned an intensive method of rearing pheasants so that country estates can charge visitors high prices to shoot the birds for sport.

The Council of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) criticised methods of "battery" rearing birds in a variety of sheds, small wire pens and boxes.

The BASC estimates that around 25 million birds are bred every year in this way with the eggs and chicks being sold on to country estates for about £1 each.

The birds are then fattened by the estates, who release them in September, shortly before the shooting season starts. Often the chicks are imported from France but there are also a number of similar units in the UK.

Council members were shown undercover footage of a Welsh pheasant-rearing unit, which was filmed by animal rights organisation Animal Aid.

The organisation claims that the birds were housed in rows of small metal and wire boxes, which were open to the elements, with one cock pheasant and six or seven females inside each.

The birds were often feather pecked and trampled by stressed cage mates, even when they had been fitted with anti-aggression masks to prevent them attacking each other.

Andrew Tyler, Animal Aid director, said: "We now ask the BASC to tell producers using such systems to immediately dismantle them. In the interim, shooting estates should be told not to buy one bird from such units."

BASC's governing council, which is elected by 122,000 members, has decided to immediately start considering a ban on battery cages. It will also consider ways of safeguarding welfare standards of birds reared to be shot.

The association said in a statement: "Council states unequivocally, on the basis of what has been presented so far, that battery-type cage laying systems for pheasants and partridges are incompatible with the values of the BASC and the culture of game shooting."

BASC spokesman Simon Clarke said that estates in Cumbria would "be benefiting" from chicks bred in such a way.

He said that the BASC was pressing for larger pens for pheasants measuring five metres by five metres.

"The British public has taken a stand against battery rearing of chickens and we think they will take a stand against rearing of pheasants in this way, which are wild animals. We want to evolve the sport to the highest standards possible."