44 



THE GAME BREEDER 



placed in long rows, each containing a 

 hen and a brood of young birds, which 

 are permitted to run about before the 

 coop where the hen is confined. 



The wild-breeding methods are almost 

 universally applied to partridges and 

 grouse. This method consists of making 

 the property, owned or leased by the 

 game preserver, safe and attractive to 

 the birds, which are permitted to nest 

 in a wild state in the attractive and safe 

 places provided for them by special 

 plantings where such are needed to make 

 the various fields attractive. 



Two- kinds of game keepers are re- 

 quired for the two kinds of work. The 

 men engaged in hand-rearing are busy 

 during the breeding season about the 

 hatching house, pens and rearing fields. 

 When the young pheasants are able to 

 fly well and are two-thirds or nearly 

 full grown, often they are trapped and 

 confined in pens. This is the method 

 on foreign game farms where the birds 

 are to be sold alive, and this is the meth- 

 od of many shooting clubs in America 

 where it is deemed desirable to confine 

 the pheasants until the shooting season 

 opens. For the shooting, a certain num- 

 ber of birds are liberated, often on the 

 day the shooting is to be done. Many 

 pheasants would be lost to vermin in 

 America if they should be taken to the 

 coverts from the rearing fields and given 

 their liberty some time before the shoot- 

 ing season opens. 



The hand-reared pheasants often do 

 not roost in trees and where they re- 

 main on the ground at night they are an 

 easy prey for ground vermin. In Amer- 

 ica they also are in great danger from 

 owls when they are induced to nest in 

 the trees and, as I have observed, many 

 of the clubs trap up their young pheas- 

 ants on the rearing fields and hold them 

 in pens (which are covered at the top) 

 to protect them from their numerous 

 enemies. 



The hand-reared ducks usually are 

 taken from the rearing field to ponds 

 where often they are protected by fences 

 of chicken wire enclosing the pond and 

 some adjacent land, or at least a part 

 of the land. An island is attractive to 



ducks since they. are safe from ground 

 vermin. 



• It has been found difficult often in the 

 older countries, especially in countries 

 where foxes are preserved for sport to 

 turn down hand-reared pheasants in the 

 coverts. The keepers usually see that 

 the young birds quickly take to the trees 

 at night. On some preserves I have been 

 told brush is erected in the rearing fields 

 to induce the young birds to form the 

 habit of roosting above the ground. 



It would be difficult for a poultryman, 

 in many places in America, to attempt 

 to establish his poultry in fields and 

 woods and to leave the birds out over 

 night, and it is evident that hand-reared 

 pheasants, although somewhat wilder 

 than barn-yard fowls, are in danger of 

 serious losses due to vermin when an 

 attempt is made in America to distribute 

 and establish them on the farm or coun- 

 try estate. 



There are places in England where the 

 pheasant has been established as a wild 

 breeding bird and where no hand-rearing 

 is done. 



Mr. Ogilvie Grant, an authority on 

 English game birds, says there can be 

 no doubt that if the pheasant were not 

 artificially reared it would soon cease to 

 exist, but Captain Aymer Maxwell in 

 his excellent book on pheasants says the 

 pheasant maintained its foothold in Eng- 

 land for some fifteen hundred years 

 without much assistance at the hands of 

 man and that it is less than a century 

 since the practice of -rearing pheasants 

 became at all well known. 



He refers to places where pheasants 

 are exclusively bred wild and where none 

 are hand-reared, and publishes a letter 

 from a preserve owner who describes 

 how he manages to secure an average 

 yield of 1,400 to 2,000 wild pheasants. 

 Captain Maxwell says that special plant- 

 ings are required and that the birds must 

 be fed at certain seasons. 



On many English preserves some of 

 the pheasants are left out throughout the 

 year and many wild eggs are gathered 

 from their nests and brought in to be 

 hatched with the eggs gathered from the 

 penned pheasants. It should be remem- 

 bered always that ground and winged 



