U4 



THE GAME BREEDER 



the sod should be replaced over it. A 

 member of the Game Conservation 

 Society, who had a pen full of pheasants 

 and neglected to wire the outside, in the 

 manner just described, reported that a 

 dog dug under his fence in the night and 

 killed all of his birds. 



It is advisable to divide the large pen 

 into two or more parts, making a cross- 

 fence of chicken wire with a gate that 

 can be opened to let the pheasants pass 

 from one pen to the other. Pheasants 

 quickly destroy the grass in a pen, and 

 if the birds are kept out of one part of 

 the pen until the grass is well up they 

 can then be permitted to go to the new 

 ground by opening the gate between the 

 inclosures. 



A good-sized pen should have some 

 brush placed at intervals running across 

 it so as to make small hedges or covers. 

 The brush is best placed against a cross 

 stick or support, leaning it up on each 

 side, leaving an avenue beneath to 

 which there should be frequent open- 

 ings. The cock birds will indulge in 

 fighting during the breeding season and 

 if the pen be a small one, without the 

 small covers referred to, one cock may 

 kill many or all of the others. When 

 the cocks can run into and out of the 

 little hedges and are screened by them, 

 when with the hens on one side or the 

 other, the losses due to fighting are in- 

 considerable, and possibly the exercise 

 incident to the birds chasing one another 

 may be beneficial. 



Movable pens that are big enough to 

 be desirable are difficult to move. At 

 some pheasantries they are moved by 

 horse power, but the large pen seems to 

 be used more on the game farms and 

 preserves we have visited, and we have 

 no doubt the skilled game farmers and 

 keepers would use the movable pens 

 more than they do if there was any ad- 

 vantage in so doing. The large pen is 

 the only kind we havq ever used. 



If the pens are to.be used year after 

 ye^r the ends should be made so that 

 they can be taken down easily, so as to 

 be sbh to run a plow through the pen. 

 ;^t;; is, a, good plan to have a second pen 

 9)aj.Jr,^hi ground and to plow 'up 'and 



plant the ground in the old pen after it 

 has been used for two seasons. Always 

 there is danger of disease if a pen be 

 used year after year. 



We shall be glad to have letters from 

 keepers who have used movable pens. 

 We have only seen them at one place 

 and the birds did not appear to us to 

 look as well there as we have seen them 

 on many big game farms and preserves 

 when the big pens are used. 



Small breeders and breeders of the 

 expensive aviary species often use small 

 pens containing one cock and four or 

 five hens. The big pen is the one most 

 used on shooting preserves and game 

 farms where large numbers of birds are 

 reared for sport or for sale to shooting 

 clubs. . 



A Summer of Calamities. 



[The writer says the following description 

 of wild turkey difficulties is not for publica- 

 tion. We always heed such requests but we 

 are sure there will be no objection to our 

 quoting the part of the letter which refers 

 to the difficulties encountered. — Editor.] 



Last summer was a summer of calami- 

 ties. First crows got the eggs of my wild 

 turkeys in the breeding pens ; next a dog 

 drd the same until at last I poisoned him. 

 Then owls got the little ones ; then gapes. 

 At last I turned them all out with tarrie 

 mothers and this went well for a while^ 

 then they began rambling all up and 

 down the river until a man who lives 

 three miles from me sent for me to come 

 and get them. There were thirty in 

 that flock. 



I had to put them up and a mink got 

 one each night so I let them out and they 

 vanished. Nor did I find them until last 

 Sunday and five more were gone. But 

 the one with shot in his breast and crop 

 told the story of how that one and his 

 brethren had been going. But I still have 

 some beauties. 



(Continued from page 138.) 

 trolling the crows and other vermin, with 

 excellent results. If you could see (as we 

 have) ruffed grouse, pheasants and quail all 

 in the air at once within a few yards of 

 the house, and if you could hear the rapid 

 popping of the guns and the thump of the 

 big birds as they struck the ground, you would 



