PHEASANTS IN COVERT AND AVIARY 



respect. Considerable differences of opinion exist as to 

 what should constitute the food of Pheasant chicks from the 

 time that they are placed in the coops until they are finally 

 severed from their foster-parents at the covert side. 



With Pheasants reared under perfectly natural conditions, 

 the keeper has little concern, but artificial rearing necessitates 

 the selection of such foods as approximate the food obtained 

 by Pheasants living in a wild state. 



All game food manufacturers make a speciality of Pheasant 

 foods suitable for chicks from the time they are hatched 

 up to the time that the birds are placed in the covert, like- 

 wise subsequeutly from the latter period until they require no 

 further feeding, that is until they fall to the gun of the 

 sportsman. 



Two systems of feeding are adopted, one known as 

 the dry method and the other the wet one, each having 

 their advocates, though the one most generally employed 

 is the wet system of feeding ; not that wet food is supplied 

 to Pheasant chicks, but food that is slightly moist and given 

 to them in a granulated form. 



From within the first twelve hours after incubation, some 

 form of egg food is universally employed, as eggs contain 

 all the constituents or provide materials essential for their 

 growth. The albuminous material of eggs consists of the 

 elements oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, sulphur and 

 phosphorus, united together in such proportions as to form 

 a food easy of assimilation, provided that such properties are 

 not destroyed by over-cooking. 



Very few keepers or game - rearers attempt to rear 

 Pheasants without use of eggs, though they can be reared, 

 as proved by the vigorous growth of wild birds, without 

 such food. 



There is a popular but erroneous notion that eggs 



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