Hen phesants

[smithwicks 182]

ok lads and lassies heres a question!

 

do rayerd hen phesants breed when they are released into the wild?

serious answers please

atb Bill

[alimac 882]

they will often have a clutch but will loose nearly all the chicks in a few days, bad parental skills

[2434me 13]

they will often have a clutch but will loose nearly all the chicks in a few days, bad parental skills

 

I tend to agree with alimac on this one ! If they can reach their second breeding year its supposed to be a bit better ?

But not many make it that far .

 

Even a good wild hen has trouble! between vermin and weather she's lucky to get 1 or 2 out of a brood .

[Steve McHardy 2]

they will often have a clutch but will loose nearly all the chicks in a few days, bad parental skills

 

I tend to agree with alimac on this one ! If they can reach their second breeding year its supposed to be a bit better ?

But not many make it that far .

 

Even a good wild hen has trouble! between vermin and weather she's lucky to get 1 or 2 out of a brood .

 

I agree with the above pheasants are not good mothers with so many varying factors which can influence the rearing of the brood the odds are always stacked against them.

[slip,course,kill 0]

they will often have a clutch but will loose nearly all the chicks in a few days, bad parental skills

 

I tend to agree with alimac on this one ! If they can reach their second breeding year its supposed to be a bit better ?

But not many make it that far .

 

Even a good wild hen has trouble! between vermin and weather she's lucky to get 1 or 2 out of a brood .

 

I agree with the above pheasants are not good mothers with so many varying factors which can influence the rearing of the brood the odds are always stacked against them.

there not worth retting out to breed

[waidmann 105]

if you can maintain a suitable habitat and a low predator pressure then yes.

as said above the first year will mostly fall out,int the second year they will raise more( so do not shoot hens,we had a rule that if a hen was shot the gun had to pay for 5 in the next season.we did not release birds except mown out broods reared by bantam)

[kbtfowler 2]

2nd and third year birds are fine just down to weather and predators

[smithwicks 182]

if you can maintain a suitable habitat and a low predator pressure then yes.

as said above the first year will mostly fall out,int the second year they will raise more( so do not shoot hens,we had a rule that if a hen was shot the gun had to pay for 5 in the next season.we did not release birds except mown out broods reared by bantam)

 

yea we have that rule too in our club, but we can shoot old black hens do.

[Guest RN-Rabbit-Control]

we did not release birds except mown out broods reared by bantam

 

As for breeding themselves, bantam reared chicks dont do so bad, as they gain the mothering intsincts from the hen.

[waidmann 105]

in a shoot where i helped the keeper in germany( non paying guest/open gun) we prefered the black pheasant( tenebrosus) asthey held better in 300m above sea level. maybe just misled but they did breed and kept better than ph' mongolicus etc

i know that there are no pure bred pheasant anymore but thats how they identify them over there

 

we would not shoot any hens,if black then tough always got a giggle and around at the end of the day

[mudman 14]

I would say that reared partridge do not breed well, but reared pheasants can breed well if they survive the shooting season.

 

I attended a Game Conservancy grey partridge day which touched on the subject of pheasants, basically apart from habitat and predator control they need feeding right through until May or June. It was explained that most pheasants are fat right through the season due to plenty of available food in the form of wheat from the feeders, they then suddenly struggle to find food when the shoot stops feeding at the season end. The hens are fit enough to lay a clutch but are basically starving whilst they incubate, using up what fat reserves they still have to keep alive. They either abandon the clutch towards the end of the incubation due to starvation, or hatch off the chicks but are in such poor condition that the hens are more concerned with feeding themselves than mothering the chicks and thus most of the young perish due to neglect.

 

I now keep about half the feeders full right through spring, and also move them out from the woods down into the hedgerows etc. and have noticed a big improvement in the numbers of hens rearing broods. With the current price of wheat (cheap) it has got to be worth a try...

Edited October 10, 2009 by mudman