Raising pheasants

[captaincoot]

I've raised pigs cattle chickens but what does it take to raise a pheasant? How big of pen? I'm going to get 360 eggs I know feed and keep them in a round pen, Is 36 ft circle big enough? How big of pen when they get bigger and what about netting? Or do you just release them at a certain age? Thanks for the help guys:thumbsup:

 

[oldandnew]

Roosters get agressive fast,and all are peckers, as in each other, huge cages with lots of over head cover,like tall weeds, some bare dirt, and some clover to peck helps a lot. Room to roam is the biggest issue, so no pen is too large. Depending upon the hatch rate probably around 80%, you are going to need a titanic pen, or use blinders, literally rose colored glasses, to keep down the combat. I have been able to avoid that with approximately 16 sq foot per bird. I would also encourage you to use a "meat" source early on, like mealworms,wax worms, crickets, etc. it helps their health by putting oil in their feathers, High protien, and holds down the pecking. When they can fly, you could release, and do a program like the British and feed them loose. The down side is depredation, and losses to weather, starvation, random accident. It's fun though, pick a variety that is adapted to your area, but slightly different in appearance so later during hunting you can identify your birds. Good Luck.

 

[captaincoot]

I was going to put the ring around a brush pile and brome grass. When they get bigger I could make the pen 100 yards by fifty. Is that big enough for them to learn to fly? The netting I'm looking at is 50ft by 25ft I figure If they can fly over that their good to go. The big pen would have honeysuckle evergreens and tall grass I'm hoping it will teach them alittle about the wild. I'm new at this so let me know if my thinking is good or bad

 

[FCSpringer]

I am headed home Thurs. I will take some pics of mine. You sound plenty big. Haven't forgot the trap pic either just need to get off the pot. Your chicken wire sides, build that at least 6' high, and get some 1/2 x 1/2" square mesh galv. roll fencing to roll up the side a bit and out on the ground a couple feet ( like rabbit cage wire). Steak that down with landscape staples, and criters always try to dig next to the fence and can't. the grass grows through and you can mow right over it in a short while. I can't even see mine any more. I don't burry the chicken wire cause it will rust off if you do that pretty fast. I put 14' tall posts in the middle to give it height for flight. And topped them with tires cut in half for the net to rest on. Get UV protected net. and 1 1/2 " squares is better then the bigger stuff for hang ups, "like batting cage net". Raise them to adult or forget it. feed and release after hunting season or spring.

 

[oldandnew]

If you see them start pecking and fighting move fast, but it sounds like a good start. Chances are the little buzzbombs will fly the fence pretty young, and then hang around for a while, till they get the feel of freedom. If allowed to do that, I doubt they will be big enough to fight or peck till they are free range!

 

[BleuBijou]

Coot, what kind of incubator are you planning to use???

 

[captaincoot]

Coot, what kind of incubator are you planning to use???

My farmer friend takes care of that he's raised every kinda of chicken know to man. He has two big incubators the kind you have to turn the eggs. I think they hold 600 eggs. He raised pheasant last year he lets them go in june but I would like to keep my roosters until hunting so the nephews can learn about hunting. Thats my plan anyway. Thanks for answering my questions guys and keep giving me more good ideas:thumbsup:

Where you guys get the bird netting from I've been looking but maybe you guys know a better spot I haven't found yet.

 

[oldandnew]

Netting can sometimes be bought cheap on Ebay. As FC says make sure it's photo resistant stuff, other the sun gets in a season. Nice thing about pheasants, they get wild fast, a week,or two out of the pen, if they survive, they are hard to tell from wild birds.

 

[quail hound]

Coot, sounds like you'll have a great set up that should workout great.:thumbsup: This year I'm going to try a new approach. I have 6 very broody game hens that I'm going to give the hatching and brooding chores to. They like to set on 12 eggs each and have a proven track record of 90% hatch and 90% brood success and they should be able to raise 2 or possibly 3 clutches each depending on when and how long the pheasants lay. By my calculations 6 hens * 12 eggs * 2 hatches equals 144 pheasant chicks - 20% mortality equals 116 or alot of damn pheasants running around the neighborhood. Plus these hens will instill their inherent gameyness in these chicks. I have seen one hen thrash a red tailed hawk that grabbed a chick, and the chick lived to tell the tale. I also hope the hens will teach the chicks to roost in the trees like they do.

 

[onpoint]

I can not stress enough what FC has said. You best do all you can to stop predators from digging in. I lost 50 pheasants and 30 chukers in in night. We had the wire buried 10-12" into the ground. The SOB still dug in and killed every single bird. Most were carried off. Tough to loose after all the hard work of getting them near full grown. Myself, I would lay hog panels down for the floor of the entire pen, leaving them sticking past the outer fence by a good 2ft. . then wire and stake the fence down to the ground and hog panels. Trust me Fox and Coon with stop short of nothing to get in that pen. I put a calf hutch inside so they had some sort of shelter. A massive thunderstorm with heavy rain and or hail can kill a bunch without some kind of shelter. Brush is good to have in the pen. I use to cut green pine bows or loft long canary reed grass on top standing brush. If they can get something to hide in and separate themselves some what from each other. It helps on keeping them from pecking each other to death. Your going to have to put blinders on once they get big enough or they will peck each other to death, plain and simple. It wasn't hard to put them on. Two people and it goes fast. We have raised a ton of birds over the years. I have Quail right now. IMO, they are much easier to raise and produce eggs like mad.

Good Luck

 

[captaincoot]

I was going to use an eletric fencer and put the wire real low almost on the ground. Maybe 2 3 wires. Works in the sweet corn patch.

 

[oldandnew]

Quail are great but you can't raise them on the ground for more than a couple of years, on the same soil. they will get codocitous,(sic), I forget the spelling but it amounts to ulcerated gut rot. If one looks a little ruffled, one morning, he'll be dead in an hour, the rest will be following behind within the day! Terremycin in the water might save some. If your going to raise quail on ground, you have to move to fresh ground at least every year, and even that may not save you. All quail raisers will tell you to get them up on wire, even in the flightpens. As the old pro bird raiser used to tell me as a kid, " quail are little bits of death looking for a place to happen". OnPoint may be far enough north that the disease can't live in the permafrost! I don't know about that, but anywhere it gets warm you'll loose them for sure, and it comes on suddenly without much warning, For some reason, the Pheasants and Chukars are not as affected, and ground raising works everywhere.

 

[onpoint]

I was going to use an eletric fencer and put the wire real low almost on the ground. Maybe 2 3 wires. Works in the sweet corn patch.

that's fine but you know when you will know it's not working for the first time? When all your birds are dead. I use a lot of electric fence here on the farm. It's a constant thing to keep working. Checking it every day and the cows still get out. They check it more often then me I guess. If a half a dozen coons keep messing with it, soon they will get it grounded out. Then the feed bag is on. They seem to be more set on getting at live birds then sweet corn in a garden.

I wish the best of luck

 

[captaincoot]

that's fine but you know when you will know it's not working for the first time? When all your birds are dead. I use a lot of electric fence here on the farm. It's a constant thing to keep working. Checking it every day and the cows still get out. They check it more often then me I guess. If a half a dozen coons keep messing with it, soon they will get it grounded out. Then the feed bag is on. They seem to be more set on getting at live birds then sweet corn in a garden.

I wish the best of luck

The electric was going to be my third line of defense make em think twice about messing with my pheasant. I'll also will put out some live traps. I liked the wire mech idea. I have a bunch of wire hog slats for the ground I want to see them dig through or under that (5 by 4 foot). Plus a bunch of tin to build a wall 3 to 6 feet high. Plus Browndog and hairydog on watch

 

[tmrichardson]

deleted deleted

 

[oldandnew]

I've never had any luck with electric fence, tried everything from the electrified poultry mesh to the multiple wire low to the ground. maintenece is a chore, the electric field makes the grass grow faster under the fence, constant ground out from a wide variety of causes. OnPoint is wise to the issue, if your out 1 time in 6 months, the coons, possums, bobcats, or foxes will clean you out that night! chew off the heads and leave bodies everywhere. Light helps, the imtermittent red variety is best. Makes the predators nervous for a while but they get accustomed to everything.

 

[quail hound]

I don't know if you guys have them out there but weasles are the best. They leave you a nice neat pile of dead birds with only the guts eaten out of one bird.:thumbsup:

 

[captaincoot]

Weasles are my biggest worries nasty animal. I think you guys got me to not put electric fence up:thumbsup: Thats why I like to ask questions before I do something better chance it will work for me. Will me releasing the hens to the wild cause probelms? I was thinking the hawks would eat them instead of the true wild ones. And the ones that made it over winter would make fine hens.

 

[1pheas4]

I don't know if you guys have them out there but weasles are the best. They leave you a nice neat pile of dead birds with only the guts eaten out of one bird.:thumbsup:

I agree. Those things are so very small, yet can wipe out an entire pen of birds over night. My experiance with weasles have been a buntch of dead birds with the base of their throats chewed out.

All and all it was still wroth raising the pheasants at that time. --1pheas4

 

[oldandnew]

It's only my opinion. But my experience has been any pheasant, hen or rooster, which survives the first two weeks, is virtually the equal of a wild bird. The rub comes in that if you have a wild population now, the birds have naturally expanded to occupy the existing habitat already, your release birds if thery survive, occupying the same habitat structure,will compete with the wild birds, for whats available, with one or the other the looser. Have you ever noticed how pheasants in particular will refill superior habitat? During the hunting season some patches always hold birds, because as birds are removed, birds in surrounding inferior habitat, move in and fill the better habitat as the mortality removes the birds who previously occupied it. Same with the introduced birds. Exception being if there has been a lack of success with spring hatches, or survival, which has been the case in Southwest Iowa, NE Kansas, SW Nebraska, NW Missouri, where we have basically no birds of the year, with a remnant population of two year old+ birds. In this case there is unoccuppied suitable habitat, waiting to be occuppied by a super compensation hatch, hopefully this year! But a fall release of birds this year, might have provided hunting opportunities which were not available, plus allowed for some additional hardened hens to provide recovery stock. Percentages of survival as qouted by the professionals are dismal, but I have always suspected that those numbers are skewed by things like release the day before hunting season, rearing techniques, etc. After all if the percentages are that bad, how did we ever get them in the first place! since every jack one of them came out of a cage orginally, and I seriously doubt the release techniques practiced in the 1880's followed any great impact study or scientific research. More like a couple guys with a wagon full of pen raised pheasant/chickens rolled out of town till they found a likely spot and set them free. Survival, and success, as with all things relies upon the lowest common denominator, is it lack of winter cover, lack of nesting cover, lack of nesting success due to weather, lack of escape cover where they aren't bothered, it's almost never food, except during times of deep snows and thick ice. Good Luck, band them so you know what happens to them. I release mine in an area devoid of pheasants naturally, I have seen mine survive for three years,and reproduce on their own, but mine is an isolated habitat in a desert of fescue, and subdivisons, so I will never establish a self sustaining population. But it's fun to try and it gives me some dog work opportunities.