THE GAME BREEDER 



49 



An Oregon Deer Farm. 

 G. D. Gorm. 



Editor of The Game Breeder : 



Last April I bought twelve head of 

 deer, natives of this part of Oregon. Six 

 of them were bucks and six of them 

 does. From five of the does I raised 

 eight fawns this year. I have an en- 

 closure at present of 70 acres and am 

 fencing 80 acres more. At present will 

 fence 300 acres in all in the next year. 

 I "hope to raise six hundred deer on this 

 place. Eighty acres of this land I will 

 have in clover and alfalfa hay. Will cut 

 two crops, then turn the deer in and 

 pasture it off until winter. Then they 

 live mostly on browse. I have a beau- 

 tiful trout stream running through the 

 place. The game business in western 

 Oregon will be Very profitable as this 

 country is an ideal place to raise deer, 

 elk and wild turkeys. The law is fa- 

 vorable for game breeding in Oregon. 

 I would like to correspond with one of 

 your readers who has experience in rais- 

 ing wild turkeys. 



Most respectfully, 



G. D. Gorm. 

 Oregon. 



[Write to Jno. R. Gammeter, Akron, Ohio, 

 Miss Mary Wilkie, Beaver Dam, Va., H. P. 

 Bridges, Baltimore, Md., Johnson and Sund, 

 Blabon, N. Dak.— Editor.] 



More Dog. 



Albert — I see California has passed 

 a law allowing a hunter to hunt with 

 one dog. Wonder what would happen 

 if he should use a dachshund which you 

 know is said to be "a dog and a half 

 long." 



Ben — True, the dachshund is a dog 

 and a half long but he is only "half a 

 dog high," so in reality he is no more 

 than one dog. 



Pheasants and Blackbirds. 



"We want to get a suggestion from 

 you," one of the pheasant breeders 

 writes. "We are simply having the devil 

 of a time this year being annoyed by 

 black birds, which we have never had 

 before. Our ring-necked pheasants are 

 in open aviaries or runs, no wire over 



the top" and the minute the ringnecks 

 lay a black bird swoops down and eats 

 the egg. As you know we cannot shoot 

 as that frightens the ringneck and cuts 

 off their laying and injures their fer- 

 tility. If you can make any suggestion 

 in regard to this same will be duly appre- 

 ciated." 



[You should have a gun. A Parker double 

 barrelled gun or a Remington pump gun can 

 be used as in the manner described.] 



The only two remedies I know of for the 

 black birds is to cover the pens with netting. 

 String netting will do for a season or two, and 

 second, the shooting of black birds at a little 

 distance from the pens. If you can get a boy 

 who is fond of shooting who will shoot light 

 loads of smokeless powder at the birds on 

 the line of their approach, I think you will 

 find that they will soon learn the danger and 

 keep away. After a few days shooting it 

 might be a good plan to put up a scarce crow 

 with a black broomstick in its hand slightly 

 concealed in the ambush where the shooting 

 has been done. 



The best remedy I have ever seen suggested 

 for the pest of English sparrows which eat up 

 a big lot of the food in the English pheasant 

 pens was to net them out, but I am sure a 

 little persistent shooting at any birds will make 

 thern wild. I am inclined to think the biggest 

 losses are early in the morning. This is the 

 time when the crows are most active in steal- 

 ing eggs. We had a big lot of crows at our 

 Wading River preserve but a little shooting 

 early in the morning soon made them very 

 wary and we took a good lot with traps. 



I think it would be a good plan for you to 

 write to M. J. Newhouse, Oneida Community, 

 Oneida, New York, and ask his advice about 

 trapping black birds. — Editor.] 



In-breeding. 



A western state game officer wrote to 

 inquire about the fertility of quail eggs 

 from birds of the same covey. Our opin- 

 ion about in-breeding is that it is best 

 to separate the birds and to breed birds 

 which are not related. In a state of 

 nature the covies are much broken up by 

 the destruction due to hawks and other 

 vermin and the birds, no doubt, find non- 

 related mates. On shooting properties 

 where the birds are protected against 

 vermin the covies are broken up by 

 shooting and undoubtedly the birds left 

 after the destruction by shooting find 

 non-related mates. 



On the foreign preserves partridge 

 eggs often are removed from one nest 

 and exchanged for those laid in another 



