Pheasants Breeding and Rearing. 15 



towards healthiness of the stock. Lime or broken oyster 

 shells should also be provided at laying time. 



When confined in this manner, good healthy first and 

 second-year hens lay from twenty to thirty eggs apiece, 

 and although some of them may drop them anywhere about 

 the pen, the majority will resort daily to some particular spot 

 which will do duty for a nest, consequently they will be 

 easily collected. Owing to the size of the enclosure, most 

 of the hens will commence their laying and nesting opera- 

 tions in the same or similar manner to unrestrained birds, 

 forming their nids, and proceeding in the usual way. The 

 aim of the mode of introducing pheasants here described 

 is that, in addition to the birds hand-reared from eggs laid 

 in the pen, each hen may herself hatch off a nest of 

 youngsters, and rear them, thus producing a small stock of 

 practically wild birds. In a natural state the pheasant rarely 

 lays more than nine eggs, but will occasionally exceed that 

 number. Generally all are hatched out, but the bird is a 

 bad mother, and seems to be more content with five or six 

 chicks reared than the full number. Consequently, if the 

 eggs in each nest in the pen be daily taken until about 

 five-and-twenty or thirty per bird have been obtained, the 

 nests may then be left for the hen to complete her sitting 

 and hatch off. One should, of course, be careful to note 

 that the bird is sitting, otherwise the eggs would be wasted. 

 They must be collected during laying time twice a day 

 in the morning between ten and eleven, and in the afternoon 

 between four and five. When collecting, put them small 

 end downwards in a box of bran. They should be kept 

 in a tray of this, and be turned every day. One should 



