Originally Posted by
Oldtimr
I truely hope you contact and visit a letgitimate pheasant propagator to get good information to raise pheasants. It is more than just hatching eggs or buying chicks and if not done properly you will just waste your time and money. Do not bother covering the ground with chicken wire because it will stop nothing from entering your pen. You will need to have your pen sides burried in the ground anywhere from 12 to 20 inches to keep predators from digging into the pen. Additionally, if you are going to have tall native grasses in the pen, additional cover such as brush piles are not necessary. There is a lot to know in order to raise your birds to release age and have enough of them survive to get the most for your money. They can start to fly already at 2 weeks of age for short distances. They should not be left outside in a hardening pen for more than 8 to 10 hours until they are at least 8 weeks old because they will not be fully feathered until then. There is too much you should know to get it from a message board. A message board is not the place to get the best information to do what you want to do, you will get information, but not all will be correct or the best way to proceed. Go to the PGC or a licensed pheasant propagator and pick their brains and take notes, to give you the best succes possible. It will cost a little more to do it right, but you will like the end result better. Good luck.
Burying the fence really doesn't help much, laying chicken wire flat on the ground buried under a few inches of dirt, three feet out does. My main predator is Fox and they can dig twenty inches in minutes. The wire laid flat out on the ground seems to confound them a bit. They most always want to dig at the fence edge. And laying it out flat on the ground is a whole lot easier than digging a hundred plus foot trench. I used pieces of rebar as stakes to hold the wire down.
Good luck getting much to grow in the enclosure. Mine gets picked clean pretty quick.
The reason I release mine late is the males don't get their full color until later and can be hunted before the winter hits. The mortality rate is high anyway. The younger they are, the easier prey they are.
I have a lean-to on one end of my enclosure, with some old crates and straw. I usually keep a couple of full grown hens from last years batch. Cocks don't work out well.
If a predator does get into your enclosure the only real chance they have is a brush pile, they can bob and weave and try for altitude for awhile. I also put in a few long perches up high.
I really haven't lost many Chicks before release unless they beat themselves to death on the enclosure sides when they get spooked, or a varmint finds it's way in. I did keep a Cock Pheasant with the younguns one year, he killed some.
Somebody that does it for a living may have some good tips on feed for the Chicks. They seem to be partial to bugs, grain doesn't excite them much, they will eat mash but I think they may do better on something high protein. I feed mine maggots and meal worms (fish bait) periodically.
I get my Chicks at around 3-4 weeks old. a buddy raises them in a brood house until then.
Get all the info you can from as many sources as possible. Some you just learn by trial and error, the hard way.