_Raising English or Ring-necked Pheasants in Canada._
Having often heard father speak of the English pheasant as a beautiful
game bird, and as I was overly anxious to pay Canada back some of the
birds I had murdered in my younger days, I decided to try these
pheasants.
In 1895 I sent to Pleasant Ridge, Ohio, for two or three settings of
English pheasants’ eggs. I felt sure this climate would agree with them
as they were exactly the same breed as I was, English buck-eyes!
However, I was smart enough not to ignore my mother’s kind offer, and I
let her have one setting to hatch for me. I paid particular attention to
the two hens I set, scarcely allowing them to get off the nest; and here
is where I now believe I made the mistake. Not one egg hatched. But dear
mother signalled me to come over and I was right there. Her old hen had
hatched eleven. Mother smiled and gave them to me, hen and all, but told
me to leave them with her until the next day. Then I moved them, and
raised nine to the size of quail, when a dog killed four, leaving the
old hen and me with only five. Four of these proved to be males and a
cat owl killed the hen. March, 1896, found me with four beautiful male
birds only.
I had now learned that a gentleman in London, Ontario, had English
pheasants for sale, and as my experience had proved that an English
buck-eye hitched up to a Canadian was a joyous, satisfactory cross, with
the human race, I wrote this man and secured two hens which were
undoubtedly English-Canadians. I liberated three of the four male birds
and put the two hens in with the one male; and from this trio we hatched
sixty-two pheasants. Then I enclosed four acres with a wire fence seven
feet high. Along one side I made several brood pens about two rods
square, each. I put one male bird with every five hens, putting plenty
of gravel and grit in each pen so as to secure good digesting powers. I
also gave the birds plenty of shade.
Our pheasant hens laid from thirty-five to fifty eggs each between April
the 15th and June the 15th. By giving the old birds lots of grit, the
egg shells were very hard. I used Wyandotte hens for mothers, putting
from twenty to twenty-five eggs under each hen and setting them on the
damp ground as much as possible. The eggs, like quail eggs, hatch in
twenty-four days. I pursued the same course, all through, as I have
described for raising quail, only the nest and coop are one-quarter
larger. I used the insect powder by the pound. I usually set four or
five hens at a time; keeping a record of the same, I knew when to
prepare for a hatch. I penned them in front of her for two or three
days, the same as with the quail.
When raising pheasants, I never let hens out of the coops. When birds
are from six to eight weeks old I take the hen away but leave the coop
there. Coops may be set around like bee-hives, two or three rods apart.
I painted my coops, some white and some red; the little fellows will
know their own coops and will not forget them.
Remember, I have experimented with a great variety of pheasant foods. I
have raised flies by the tens of thousands to feed to them. To do this I
would take a piece of meat, say of beef’s liver, allow the flies to blow
it, and a few hours later throw the meat in a barrel; the barrel would
be partly filled with rotten sawdust and the top of it would be covered
with a screen, with a hole left about an inch in diameter. In a few days
the maggots would have the meat all eaten up, and would have disappeared
into the sawdust below. In about two weeks the barrel would be simply
full of flies. I would now put a small flytrap over the hole, darkening
the rest of the screen; the flies would come to the light, get into the
trap, and when in the small trap could be either scalded or drowned. I
have also fed the pheasants the maggots. But to raise either flies or
maggots is not as desirable for the nose as it might look from the eye
and both are unnecessary. Feed a little custard, and when about two
weeks old, add corn-meal to it. Keep them hungry and let them hunt for
insects. Exercise is what they need and what they must have. When birds
are three months old, they should be caught and shipped.
The high fence for young is unnecessary, for your birds will know you
and will be just as tame as chickens. In this way I made my pleasure
self-sustaining, and I would often let an old hen and fifteen or twenty
go. The finest brood I ever saw was out of two poor hatches. I put
twenty-five with one hen and in about a week I let hen and all out. They
roamed all over the premises, but of course like spiteful deeds and
chickens, they came home to roost. I fed them just enough to give them a
sweet taste in their mouths, and the hen raised twenty-three of them.
How they did grow! Finally she left them and they went to the woods
about one-half mile away.
In this way I stocked this township so I could have shot a two-bushel
bag full in half a day. Two miles north of my place there were
twenty-eight seen dusting in the road at one time. But to-day I doubt if
there is one left in the township. Men came for miles and miles around.
Yes, I have seen them come twenty-five miles to hunt rabbits in this
neighborhood! Now I don’t want to insinuate that all rabbit hunters were
hunting pheasants, but what I really want to say is that all pheasant
hunters were hunting rabbits!