PHEASANT REARING AT ELSENHAM. 107 



followed most successfully for more than twenty years on the 

 estate of Sir Walter Gil bey. 



The details of the management will show that the success 

 is simply owing to the pheasants being reared under natural, 

 sound sanitary conditions. The number raised annually 

 varies between 3500 and 4000. The largest covert on the 

 estate is closely wooded on heavy, damp, unfavourable land. 

 It is eighty-two acres in extent. Then there are two others, 

 one of fifty-six acres and another of thirty-two acres, and in 

 addition there are some three or four hundred birds dispersed 

 on other parts of the estate. No birds whatever are penned 

 up. They are all allowed to lay in the coverts, and the eggs 

 are collected and hatched under farmyard hens. It is easy to 

 appreciate the strong vitality of the eggs, and the strength of 

 the chickens that they produce, when they are collected from 

 well-fed birds flying under natural conditions in the open. 



In order that an abundance of eggs should be produced, 

 the wild pheasants are fed freely for about six weeks before 

 they begin to lay. They have barley meal mixed with a 

 certain proportion of Sprat t's crissel for their first morning 

 meal, and afterwards soaked wheat and oats. Of the latter 

 they are particularly fond. As fattening food is not advan- 

 tageous for laying birds, no maize is used. The eggs are 

 collected daily, and a sharp look out is kept for the rooks, 

 which one season destroyed more than 500 eggs, in addition 

 to nearly fifty eggs from the hen turkey birds, which are 

 allowed to nest out and rear their young while in the coverts, 

 the turkeys and pheasants agreeing perfectly well together. 

 When the young pheasants are hatched the coops under 

 which they are placed are not crowded together, as is too 

 commonly the custom, but placed at long distances apart, 

 never nearer than thirty yards, consequently the young 

 pheasants have free and untainted range, and find insects 

 and food for themselves. For the first nine or ten days they 

 are fed three times a day, and this is done so judiciously that 

 no stale food is left from one meal to another. The food 



