Outdoors Question of the Week

I built it in one week. Setting up a rearing pen for pheasants took five years. Over those five summers I improved it. The chicken wire walls are steel post reinforced. Wire has been buried below grade 12 inches to keep predators out. I have over head shade cover from old tarps and steel roofing panels. The entire flyway roof is now netting. The birds when flying cant snap there necks on netting where chicken wire proved fatal. I planted trees and laid in rocks and crowing stumps. The perimeter is shock fenced three feet back for hawks, owls and stray dogs or cats. I prefer the taste of pheasant to chicken, so it’s been a labor of tough learned love.

Before I get a bird to the flyway, they come fresh from my home made brooder. I have round ¼ inch wire cloth with an external frame of two by two pine lumber as its exoskeleton. Two of these work for 50 chicks. Its recommended 1-2 sq ft for chicks to brood in. My brooders are two and half feet in diameter and I split the chick order in half, per brooder. It does not meet OSHA pheasant code, but works just fine.

I always start with mail order chicks. I’m not into incubators any more with my mail-order success. The brooder is round and my daughter and I dip each two day old chick’s beak in water and set them in the brooder. The brooder has four foot sidewalls and is covered with ¼ wire cloth. Inserted in the wire left to dangle is my infrared 250 watt heat lamp.

At night I completely cover the brooder roof to seal it from any drafts as I brood in my garage. I raise the heat lamp and they keep fine until I feed and water the next morning. If you have an 80 degree floor temp leave a fresh air vent to let off heat, but not big enough to allow any drafts.

By placing any old thermometer on the wood chip floor I raise or lower the lamp until its 80 degrees at the floor. You don’t want straw, hay, or saw dust for good brood floor. Chicks peck at everything and the wood chips get dropped instead of choked on. One bale will get you through a brood season. A second temperature gage hung from the roof wire is a great way to double check your temps. Droopy chicks are over heated.

Water dishes should not be open pan style. The chicks can drown. The upside down four fount waters keep the water accessible and clean. One gallon of water per 50 chicks is a rule of thumb. Keep the chick feeders away from any outside brooder edge. The chicks are not that bright and they will pin themselves in any manner you can imagine. Round brooders, no corners.

By centering the water dishes and feed trays you limit your losses and raise the odds of getting the chicks to the outside flyways. Chick starter for feed is indispensible with all the nutrients to get the birds up to fledged. The new plastic feeders for chicks look like ice cube trays and are so much easier to clean than the old fashioned metal ones, but either style, try not to have any leftover feed lying around. 3.5 to 5.5 pounds of feed per bird to an adult of 16 weeks is a general guideline.

The lamp itself hung or suspended just off center will nest the birds each evening or whenever you have the lamp on. The heat and muted red light is a miracle for getting the birds from fluff to feather. After seven days the birds feather out and fledge so I start to draw back on the internal temp. In ten days I like 70 degrees at the floor with the lamp off all day. But no drafts.

By keeping the brooder floor dry, clean and covered with starter mix the birds mature fast. Sliced apples and iceberg lettuce chunks or dandelion greens keep the birds from cannibalizing each other but once the chicks are all flying and feathered, mixed with a outside forty degree ambient nighttime temp, the birds are now moved to my flyway.

The waters from the brooders go with the birds. I also have rain collectors that water the birds. These are five gallon buckets sporadically placed that I leave two inches of the sidewalls intact. Mid flyway, in what I call the red-light district are hung two infrared brooders light as a transition heating station until the birds roost alone each evening. By July first, in northeastern Minnesota, its lights out for the season.

My flyway is 32 feet square for up to 50 chicks. I have five foot tall sidewalls. I have seen recommendations for as high as 25 sq ft per adult bird. So once again at my 20 sq ft per bird I’m cheating here but I loose chicks all through the brooding process. My goal is to bring forty to the roaster.

If you grain and water your birds with a straight corn mixture you’re going to get an adult bird to eat. If you give that flyway as much fresh green vegetation from any source you can lay your hands on it makes for a better tasting ring neck. All my lawn clippings or out of date salad from my local grocer goes in the flyways. I broadcast it through the entire enclosure.

My pheasant pen is now one summer on and one summer off. Just to let everything grow back. I’m doing bobwhite quail in my off pheasant years.

The trout whisperer

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