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Captain C. Scott-Hopkins—My Pheasant Collection



turn into real fiends when the breeding season draws near. I keep

Silky Bantams to sit on the eggs. They are light, very good mothers,

and will sit on the hard high road when broody. I do not recommend

Game Bantams for, although they are good mothers and splendid

foragers, it means instant death for any other chick to enter her coop.

I know from experience. The only Pheasants I allow to sit on their

own eggs are the Peacock Pheasants. If a hen Pheasant will sit, let her,

but take away the first three lots of eggs she lays (six eggs in all),

and let her sit on the seventh and eighth.


Do not put any other Pheasants with the Peacock Pheasant tribe

or you will lose them. They are most pugnacious little creatures, but

at the same time most attractive.


I feed my adult Pheasants on wheat, crushed maize, and dari, with

a little buckwheat and hemp thrown in, mostly during the winter.

Be sparing with your maize in the summer. You will find that Pheasants

eat far less than poultry, except,perhaps, the Silver, which I think eats

twice as much as any other Pheasant. Pea-nuts they love ; I give

these as an extra delicacy. Plenty of green food is essential. Lettuce

and dandelions in the summer and cabbage in the winter. Fresh water

every day ; don’t be content with just giving them fresh water, but

first run your hand round the inside of whatever you put your water

in, to clean it before replenishing it. A little Condy’s Fluid is advisable

in the water once a week. Fruit such as bananas, apples, and grapes

are greedily devoured ; Argus Pheasants must have bananas every

day. Some people give them raw meat, I believe they do at the London

Zoo, and very well they thrive on it.


When building your aviaries be sure that Sparrows cannot get

in or your corn bill will soon double itself ! Just give your birds enough

to eat and no more. I hate to see com lying about the aviaries.


I hope that what I have said will encourage still more people to

go in for this delightful hobby. Just try it, you will not regret it.



