180 
five yards attached averaging 10 by 25 feet. Many pens in 
breeding farms are only 5 by 7 feet, and the yards 5 or 10 
by 20 06 40) feet. 
Other things equal, however, the grounds, or yard for ex- 
ercise, should be as extensive as conditions will permit, for the 
pheasants enjoy roaming, and they are less liable to disease 
and sickness when 
they are not crowd- 
ed. Where the house 
and yards are very 
cramped it is often 
necessary to change 
their location every 
few weeks, and some 
breeders have mov- 
able fences and 
buildings which can 
be transported easily 
to a new location 
when the old site is 
dirty and the soil 
packed hard. This is 
unnecessary where 
ample accommoda- 
tions canbesupplied. 
A pheasantry for 
the accommodation ¥. 
of a dozen_ birds, 
with such natural 
increase as may be 
expected from season to season, need not take up a great 
amount of space. A house 25 feet long and 10 feet wide, 
with a sloping roof facing the sun, should provide ample 
roosting and nesting quarters. ‘The interior should be 
divided into five separate pens, with a narrow alley running 
between. Each pen should have an outside entrance to a 
yard separated from the others by wire netting. ‘The yards 
should be long and narrow, each one radiating from the house 
like the parts of a fan. A yard fifty or more feet long, and 
twenty or thirty feet wide at the outer end, would provide 
a good running place for the pheasants. 
The wire netting for the outside yards should be run up 
at least eight feet from the ground, and inside a base board 
of two feet should be provided to protect the pheasants from 
dogs. Thelattermay 
not be able to get in- 
side the yards, but 
they may frighten the 
birds so they will at- 
tempt to fly over the 
fences. One _ yard 
should be separated 
from another by a 
wire netting, and 
also by a base board 
of a foot or eighteen 
inches high so that 
the occupants of one 
yard will not be 
troubled by those of 
another. 
The nesting 
quarters should be 
arranged in the 
house in the early 
part of March or late in February. The pheasants begin 
to lay in March, and it is well to provide nesting conditions 
prior to the laying season. Some of the wilder breeds prefer 
nests which approximate in appearance the woods in which 
they formerly ranged and reared their young. An armful 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
The Pheasantry is Really a Yard Inclosed by a Wire Fence 
The Brooders and Wire-Covered Runs at the Time this Picture was taken 
Contained 1,200 Young Pheasants Eight Weeks Old 
March, 1906 
of pine boughs stacked in a corner of the house will therefore 
attract them more than the formal wooden box filled with 
hay and ostentatiously displayed for nesting purposes. The 
pheasants will make their own rough nests in the pine boughs 
and lay their eggs there in contentment. 
During the nesting season the pheasants demand unusual 
quietness and _ seclu- 
sion. If disturbed by 
visitors or unusual 
noises they will quit 
laying. No one 
should be admitted 
to the house during 
this season. The 
pheasants should be 
fed liberally and 
regularly with 
cracked corn, whole 
wheat, hemp, millet, 
buckwheat and other 
grains. If there is 
no grass for them, 
fresh lettuce or tops 
of other green veg- 
etables must be given 
freely. During the 
nesting season a cold 
mash of cornmeal 
and bran should be 
prepared for the 
female hens at least two or three times a week. The greater 
variety of food, such as grains, green turnip tops, cabbages, 
carrots, and cut clover hay they can be fed the more eggs 
will the hens lay. Crushed clam and oyster shells, and plenty 
of grit or fine gravel, are essential to the production of 
fertile eggs in abundance. 
The pheasant hens can not be relied upon in confined 
quarters to hatch their eggs, and either the incubator or a 
faithful Bantam hen should be employed for this purpose. 
The incubator is reliable for large pheasantries, where the 
birds are reared for market, but on the small suburban place 
a good Cochin Bantam, Wyandotte, or Game Bantam hen 
will do best. Select a hen noted for her faithfulness in hatch- 
ing clutches of eggs, and place a dozen pheasant eggs under 
her in some quiet 
nest where nobody 
will disturb her. If 
the nest is free from 
lice and other ver- 
min, and the hen fed 
freely and watered 
regularly, she will 
hatch out a brood of 
young pheasants in 
twenty-four days, or 
in the case of the 
Golden pheasants 
the young will ap- 
pearinabout twenty- 
one days. A quiet, 
motherly hen will 
teach her wild brood 
some_ lessons in 
domesticity they will 
never forget, and 
they will prove far less inclined to roam and run wild than 
the incubator-bred pheasants. “The Cochin Bantam hen can 
be trusted absolutely with her brood, giving about the 
same attention as required for a hen with young chickens. 
When the young pheasants appear in early spring or sum- 
08s hi ee eT Y > 
