MANAGEMENT OF PHEASANTS IN AVIARIES 



"It always pays to shut up one-third more Pheasants than 

 are generally supposed to be necessary to produce a required 

 number of eggs ; early eggs are what the rearer needs, and it 

 sometimes occurs that owing to a spell of cold weather early 

 eggs are scarce. However, the man with plenty of birds shut 

 up is nearly certain to be in a safe position. Even if laying 

 continues satisfactory from start to finish he is better off, for 

 he is able to release the Pheasants and clear his hens all the 

 sooner. This is advantageous in the interests of keeping the 

 ground clean. 



" Late eggs are never satisfactory, and I rarely keep birds 

 in pens after they have laid an average of about eighteen or 

 twenty each. Eggs produced after this never hatch out the 

 strongest chicks, and this is the reason late birds are difficult to 

 rear. The chicks are weakly from the first, and never seem 

 to gain full strength except under exceptional conditions, 

 which rarely prevail when they are placed on the rearing- 

 field. 



"If readers only thoroughly understood the importance of 

 most rigidly selecting their stock birds they would pay the 

 greatest possible attention to it, and I am afraid it is an under- 

 taking they carry out without due care. However great the 

 attention paid to birds on the rearing-field, it is at the best an 

 artificial process, very different from that intended by Nature. 

 It is a big step towards success to have the strongest and 

 healthiest of chicks to deal with, and these can only be got 

 from stock birds which are full of health and vigour." 



I3S 



