We had a surprise visitor over the weekend. A typical winter day of wet cold cloudy weather. I looked out of the kitchen window and saw the cock pheasant - a melanistic variant - of blue, green black etc and no red in the feathers.

The next day we saw 2 of them in the drive way.

We have lived here for almost 9 years and have heard pheasants crow down by the pond about 200 meter away. Occasionally we have seen one fly in that area. This is the first time we have had a visitor in our own door step!

Pheasant season is open but I do not shoot them around here. Great to just see and enjoy them - just 2 km from town & surrounded by houses with 1 acre to 25 acres of land.

Nice!

The melanistic phase pheasants are not common here , I havent seen any in the wild at all , and only very few in aviaries. One of your neighbours must have released them , and good on them for doing so.

Nice!

If it was released it was a long time ago. I have lived here for 9 years and do not know of anyone who raised pheasants.

I got some eggs from the game farm people in Rotorua and hatched them under a bantam. But I could not raise the chicks. I know I should use a proper battery with heat, light & high protein diet. I used to raise quails long ago - several hundred actually.

One day I might get a proper incubator (small 20 or 30 egg model) & make up a small battery for them & try again.

Mighty nice. Suppose these are from your eggs?

Winter? Hell it was 95 n rained here today!!
George

raising pheasants from eggs is an art. They are difficult little sods , I have a friend who raised them back in the Acclimatisation Society days and they had quite high mortality rates even though they had a great set up.

George - its truly winter here today , less than 10 C outside ( 50F) and a stiff southerly wind blowing briskly straight off Antartica. And when it rains its nearly hail , so yes - winter it is ;-)

So, what do they taste like?

No George my chick did not survive. Only tried one lot. With my experience from quails I should have known better. I thought the bantam hen would do the job but no luck.

All livestock husbandry is an art.

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
Mighty nice. Suppose these are from your eggs?

Winter? Hell it was 95 n rained here today!!
George

thanks for the replies.
Shucks, it's about the same temp here right now Muzza! Rained at least four times with enough wind to make a person stay inside.

Never tried to raise birds myself. One time I came to pick up some chickens for Mom and they had some turkeys. For the hell of it I got half dozen. She couldn't get over how deformed some of the chics were. Dad knew on sight though and we just grinned at each other. They were good eating, coyotes got three. Dad kept the Tom til he was around 30lbs. They played with each other. Finally he killed Tom to eat it and he had a hard time doing so.
I've always been interested in doing such things but, never had a place I could.

George

Raising pheasants is not that hard these days. I do about 400 a year.


just have the right processes in place. be there for the first days at regular intervals to adjust the heat. If its too cold they will smother in the middle. too hot and they will crush against the walls. proper food, there are companys making specific pheasant feed now And a clean environment. And provide water but not so they can get wet. This year i raised 408 out of an initial 430 to release.

The darker chicks in the pic are the melanistics. Naki, if you have meli's showing up someone has been releasing for sure.

Which part of NZ are you?
There most probably is a driven shoot nearby that breeds and releases birds for the season.
I've shot at a few of these shoots on the North Island.

Cheers

Nick

No driven shoots in this part of the country. More likely to be aviary escapers