APPENDIX. 
123 
After the chicks are four days old and know the call of their foster 
mother, they may be allowed to leave the coop after the morning dew has 
disappeared, and forage for themselves. Many breeders even allow the 
hen and her brood their freedom until the young birds show a disposi¬ 
tion to fly out of the enclosure, when they transfer them to covered pens. 
Young birds cared for in this manner will be hardier and freer from 
lice and disease than those confined in coops. 
THE FEEDING OF PHEASANT CHICKS. 
It is important that the hen and her brood be fed separately. The 
young birds should not be fed at all until they are twenty-four hours 
old, as they come from the shell sufficiently well nourished to maintain 
their strength for that length of time, 'but they should have clean sand 
or fine gravel to pick at from the first. By the second day they will 
begin to get hungry and need feeding every two hours. After they are 
five days old, let the feedings be gradually reduced, until, at the expira¬ 
tion of three weeks, the birds are being fed but three times a day. 
As soon as the young birds are ready to eat, they should be fed on a 
milk curd made as follows: Heat one quart of sweet milk to the boiling 
point, stir in ten eggs (well beaten) and then cook until the curd is well 
done. Strain off the watery fluid and you have a crumbly food that 
contains nearly all the elements essential to young pheasant life. A 
mixture of milk, eggs, and oat or corn meal in proportions to make a dry 
crumbly mixture is also a fine food. Boiled potatoes, mashed and mixed 
with finely chopped hard boiled eggs, corn meal, and bran—with or 
without finely chopped scraps of meat—provides a food that the young 
birds like. Still another suitable food is a mash of corn grits, wheat 
middlings, bone meal, beef scraps, and milk, made rather dry. In mak¬ 
ing curd, make only enough to last one day, as it spoils quickly, and 
sour food is death to the birds. 
Maggots are the very best animal food for young pheasants. They 
are easily procured, and the chicks may eat as many as they desire 
with perfect safety. But maggots should not be given to the birds 
until they have lain in bran long enough to clean themselves. Maggots 
when taken direct from meat seem to be poisonous and are a dangerous 
food. Maggots may be procured in various ways, but we will describe 
but two plans, both of which have been used by us. Take crushed green 
bone and finely chopped meat, and place out doors until the mixture is 
well covered with fly eggs. Then fill a box or pan half full of bran, 
over which spread thin scraps of liver or meat for food for the maggots,, 
and spread the flyblown green bone and meat on top. Another good 
method is to hang a beef or sheep head until the maggots get big enough 
to drop out. Then place a box of bran underneath and allow the mag¬ 
gots to lay in the bran a day of so before giving them to the bird^. 
