FEEDING AND MANAGEMENT OF CHICKS 



consuming stale food. It is somewhat difficult to estimate 

 what the appetites of the young Pheasants will enable them to 

 consume during the first ten days. They really require very 

 little, and if one has been so fortunate as to capture a few flies 

 it will ignore the artificial supplies for a meal at least. So do 

 not be alarmed if a chick fails to feed with, or as heartily as 

 the rest ; it has probably had a feed of something which will 

 do it much more good. 



It is a great mistake to feed so heavily that the chicks do 

 not need to search for natural insect food. On some rearing- 

 fields the feeds are so liberal, and follow each other in such quick 

 succession, that the broods are never inclined in the least to 

 search after other food. Slight hunger will cause them to 

 range, and even if they get few insects the exercise has most 

 beneficial effect. Overfed birds linger drowsily around the 

 coop, their droppings accumulating on a small area, the inside 

 of the coop getting filthy, and in that way disease is engendered. 

 However adapted the field may be for rearing Pheasants there 

 is certain to be insect life upon it to some extent, and while 

 this is available the broods should be fed so that they take 

 advantage of it, such fare being very beneficial to them during 

 the first weeks of their existence. Later on, insect life will 

 be more or less extinct, and then increased supplies of artificial 

 food will not only be advisable but necessary. 



A healthy Pheasant chick, properly fed and treated, is 

 either cosily tucked beneath the hen or ranging eagerly and 

 merrily after natural food. A sickly one is neither inclined to 

 range nor content to stay beneath the foster-mother, but sits 

 drowsily outside the coop and is by no means a pleasant 

 object to the rearer's eye. 



Rearers have of late recognised the necessity of paying 

 every attention to fowls in charge of broods of Pheasajits, 

 although at one time they met with little consideration. 



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