48 



Points on Care and Breeding of Pheasants, etc. 



hearted citizens, who some ten years ago began raising pheasaaits for his own pleasure and 

 the benefit of the general public and the good they will do the adopted state in which he re- 

 gained his health. 



Aside from maintaining a number of well filled aviaries for exhibition purposes at City 

 Park Zoo, Mr. Kendrick has liberated large numbers of pheasants. Last year alone he set 

 15,000 eggs and freed about 6,000 birds and this year he expects to set between 20,000 and 

 30,000 eggs, and will liberate probably two-thirds of his summer's hatch. 



If proof were really needed, Mr. Kendrick's willingness to reveal the many secrets of 

 raising pheasants that have cost him years of experience and thousands of dollars, is convinc- 

 ing that he is sincere in his desire to become a public benefactor. 



"When I first started my 

 pheasantry I knew no more 

 about it than a practical ex- 

 perience in rearing chickens had 

 taught me,'' said Mr. Kendrick. 

 "All the literature I could gather 

 on the subject, told how delicate 

 the little pheasants were and 

 what close attention and ex- 

 treme care in feeding they re- 

 quired. Wishing to begin right, 

 I imported an English game- 

 keeper, who was supposed to 

 have had wide experience in 

 the work. He was full of all 

 kinds of nonsensical ideas — for 

 example, one was that if the 

 pheasant chicks were fed the 

 same kind of food on a warm 

 day that they were given on a 

 cold day, they would die. The 

 result is that we have come to the conclusion that many of the pheasantries mollycoddle 

 their birds too much, and that raising pheasants is not much harder than raising chickens 

 and not near as difficult as rearing turkeys. 



"The birds upon which we rely for our summer's hatch are kept during the winter in 

 City Park. Thousands of them cocks, hens and young birds of the season before, are group- 

 ed in the large aviaries. The species which we make a specialty of raising is the pure Chinese 

 ringneck pheasant, but all of the species that we have, the Chinese, Lady Amherst, Reeves, 

 golden, silver, versicolor and others are polygamists. 



"When the naked skin about the head of the cock bird begins to assume its brilliant hues. 

 about the first of March in this locality, it is a sign of the approaching breeding season. 

 Then we begin to group the species, placing one male and three females of the silver golden 

 and Reeves in an inclosure, and four females and one male each of the other species together. 

 "Pheasants are very prolific. A hen ringneck will lay about sixty eggs in a season, a 

 Lady Amherst and a golden will average twenty-four and a Reeves and a silver pheasant, 

 between thirty and forty eggs. The eggs are all about the same shape, but they can usually 

 be distinguished by their size and color, which varies from white to dark blue. 



"The laying season out here begins about the last of March and from then until the mid- 

 dle of August the keepers are busy gathering the eggs that are found scattered over the 

 ground in the different inclosures. for in close confinement pheasants rarely build and lay 

 their eggs in a nest. As fast as a supply is gathered, we rush them ofiE to our country hatching 

 and brooding grounds. 



SILVER PHEASANT COCK IN FULL PLUMAGE 



