PHEASANT FARMING 11 



3'ee6 for Voung 4^^ett5aRts 



After forty-eight hours old the young pheasant may be fed spar- 

 ingly on hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine with a little onion tops, fresh 

 ground, lean meat, crumbled with shorts or corn meal, and later dry 

 chick food, boiled rice and curd. A custard, made of eggs and milk, 

 and cooked in the usual manner, is also an excellent food for young 

 pheasants. 



It has been the writer's experience that the so-called high-priced 

 prepared pheasant foods are a snare and a delusion, in some instances 

 not worth the freight charges. Six dollars' worth of imported ant 

 eggs scarcely made one feed for a couple of hundred young pheasants 

 last season. A few hundred pounds of "crissel" proved to be common 

 beef scrap, and a very poor quality at that, not fit to feed to adult 

 chickens, in fact they refused to eat it when fed to them. A highly 

 advertised brand of "pheasant meal" proved very expensive and not 

 eaten by the little pheasants with any relish. A good quality of 

 commercial dry chick food is all right after the birds are several 

 days old. 



Another successful method of feeding young pheasants is with 

 the larvae of the common blue flay (maggots). When this food is used 

 r.othing else need be fed, except greens occasionally, until the birds 

 are a month old, however, the chick food or cracked wheat should be 

 kept before them that they may learn to eat it and be prepared to 

 adapt themselves to the whole wheat diet when the larvse food has 

 been discontinued, which should be done gradually. 



The objection to the larvae food is the offensive odor ordinarily 

 associated with it. This may be overcome by raising the larvae 

 scientifically. Contrary to this commonly accepted idea, the larvae of 

 the fly prefers fresh to decaying meat. Professor McGillivary, of 

 Queen's University, Toronto, who has successfully raised English Ring- 

 neck pheasants, says: "Our investigation and study of entomology 

 prove to us that maggots separated from their usual surroundings, are 

 just as clean and odorless as young chickens. Flies do not lay their 

 eggs on tainted meat when fresh meat can be found, and maggots are 

 clean feeders from choice and thrive best on fresh meat.'' 



If the following method is employed, there will be little or no 

 ordor. Secure a quantity of green bone and meat trimmings coarsely 

 ground together. Take a tin pan with straight sides at least three 

 inches deep and cover bottom with shorts or fine dirt. Cn this place 

 the bone and meat mixture and leave where the flies may have access 

 to same. In warm weather the fly eggs will hatch in about two days' 

 time and the bone mixture will be partially dried up. The larvae 

 are adverse to strong light and will be found to have gone to the 

 dirt or shorts. They must now have something to feed upon. Remove 



