Okay here goes, I'll try to list what I can think of. The boys have been able , other than one year we got 8 inches of rain and the pheasant house flooded over nite, to keep the mortality rate on chicks under 10% some years under 5% .
We have an insulated house 12 x 12 we start them out in. We have an elevated platform 4 x 12 with mesh wire that the first few days, 4 or 5, we cover with paper. We dip each chicks beak in water to get them to drink right away as we take them out of the box. We keep the temp about 90 in the house (milk house heaters help if it is cold) and have heat lamps which will be between 90 and 100 directly under them. We use a high protein suet blocks (seems to reduce pecking each other with the fat and animal protein content in the suet) along with commercial feed and use electrolytes and vitamin supplement in the water. We have found the elevated platform with heat under it keeps the chicks spread out better and they don;t pile on top of each other so much. Early on before we went to the platform we lost a few chicks to suffocation when they piled up under the heat lamps (you will think some chicks are dead but they are only sleeping while others stomp all over them)
To start we sprinkle feed on the paper along with the feeders. within a few days we are picking alfalfa and other fresh greens to help keep them from pecking on each other. We take the paper off after about 4 days and put heaters under the mesh wire along with a couple heat lamps yet. . (learned the hard way crap can build up on their toes and they will peck at each others feet on solid floors.) We have a 24 inch side on this platform and within about 10 days they are flying over so they are put down on the gravel floor in teh building with the lights and heaters still avalible . We have a 20 x 60 enclosed pen which we dug the wire down 12 inches in the ground that we partition off to 20 x 16 to start letting them out. for a couple weeks (4/5 weeks old we run them in every nite heat still on) They seem to start going in on their own or can survive outside at that point on. Then it is just feed and water (we have automatic waters outside.
At 6 weeks we open the whole flyway pen up which always grows up to weeds for cover. we also have a few old pine trees and pallets foir cover in there. You need a covered area that will stay dry that is fine dirt so they can dust in to keep lice away. We start transitioning them over to grains at about 8 or 9 weeks and then release them at about 12 weeks. We do have a second flyway pen and building the same size we will split them into most years (when Grandpa doesn;t have chickens) just to give them more room. Our fly way is built with 5 inch wood posts on the sides with well pipe in the middle posts well pipe ridge pole and sucker rod bent for rafters. We wire the mesh to the sucker rod and stapled it onto green treat 2x6 boards on the sides and end frames. We doubled the mesh with a heavier gauge 2 foot up on the bottom as something (coons coyote?) tore a hole once in the other light mesh.
We built a box 4 x 8 12 inches high and catch them and put them in there and take it out to where we are going to release them and just leave it sit all day. There is usually a couple left that we have to dump out, otherwise everything just kinda wanders out. It takes cover, alfalfa/grass nearby (more bugs to eat) and water for them to seem to take off on their own.
It takes a while to start to see results. Mother nature has to cooperate and if you don;t feed cattle like us, winter feeding sure helps get them established. We used to take 30 gallon barrels (well rinsed) (pheasant club provided) and cut small slots in the bottom and fill with screenings or cracked corn and set around. Deer like em too much too. Foxes, hawks ect....like your efforts, and pen raised birds are dumb, but if you stick with it eventually with Ma Natures help you can make an impact and start seeing wild birds.
We did get some dark colored birds (black) from Sawyer when she was in business, they are pretty birds. Not many left now.
Hope that helps, we enjoy doing this and seeing birds around.
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In watertown at the zoo they had a pen with all the different pheasants in it we would go there as kids and thought they were awesome. We also wondered what they would taste like but after we talked my little brother into sneaking up and getting a mallard for supper we were not allowed there with out parents any more. It was a pretty good fight between him and the duck he was only 7. had a little meeting and dad was not impressed but they did let us keep the duck and we ate it.
When I was a young kid 6 and 7 we had a crazy Indian work for us for a couple years. Elroy. He was funnier than hell and taught us kids cool stuff (things that didn;t impress Mom) Once he brought us back a bunch of BIG fire crackers from the res. about every third one was a dud. he put all the duds in a metal 5 gallon bucket, threw in a little paper and bet us kids he could light it an once they started going off sit on the pail until they were done going off, musta been 500 of them in there. I can remember him running away whooping and hollering with his pants smoking and jumped in the cattle water tank.
He had a drinkin problem and a couple years after he quit working for us Dad got a call from the cops in Minot in Jan. He had run out of monies and food and crawled over the fence at Roosevelt Zoo and killed a deer with a knife and got caught trying to get it over the fence. Dad bailed him out of jail and never heard from him again.
I think he would have talked us kids into getting one of those fancy pheasants.
