vii. PHEASANT REARING (PART VI} 107 



to in the event of a storm of wind and rain. If you 

 have broad dry rides and an absence of vermin in a 

 wood, you may transfer well-grown young pheasants 

 to it wholesale. 



To do this place boards under the coops in the 

 rearing field by day and inclose the birds at night ; 

 then cart the hens and broods inside their coops to 

 the rides in the wood. The chicks should not, how- 

 ever, be transferred to the woods till they are eight to 

 nine weeks old. 



After August the coops and hens may be gradually 

 dispensed with, but it is advisable, up to the end of 

 October, to leave one hen to every fifty pheasants ; 

 you will find doing this has a decided effect in keeping 

 a proportion of your birds from wandering. Place 

 these few hens and coops within the woods in bare 

 spaces. 



By a generous use of food encourage the birds to 

 occupy the woods as their home.* Once your birds 

 know the woods from having been frequently fed in 



* There is no real economy in under feeding pheasants, as if they 

 are not well treated they soon stray away to return no more. The 

 only thing to be careful of is to see that the birds enjoy the supply of 

 corn, and not the rats. If you feed early and punctually, the pheasants 

 will eat the corn before the rats get it ; if you feed late and irregularly 

 the rats will run off with the corn before the pheasants realise it is 

 placed on the ground. The rats, the brutes, are always on the alert, 

 and the number of these pests a wood may contain, is sometimes 

 beyond belief. 



