900 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Gamekeeper Fulsam, on the Field Estate, 
Lenox, Mass. 
if lice get onto young pheasants it is apt to 
prove fatal to the flock. Usually the nest, in 
which the young pheasants are to be hatched, is 
formed out of a sod of grass, so placed that 
the earth side is uppermost. Among the roots 
of the sod a hollow space is scooped out and is 
lined carefully with a sprinkling of grass or of 
short straw. It has to be placed where there is 
good ventilation. Cleanliness around nests has 
to be rigidly observed. When the young pheas¬ 
ants are hatched, precautions have to be taken 
that they be not exposed to the direct sun rays 
when it is excessively hot, nor to dampness. All 
drinking and feeding vessels have to be scalded 
and cared for after use. 
Few realize how many difficulties surround the 
artificial propagation of pheasants. The attend¬ 
ants have to be constantly on the job. The young 
birds are fond of insects and the pupae of ants 
is used as a choice food for them. The diffi¬ 
culty is to obtain this in sufficient quantity as it 
is hard to get. As a substitute maggots are used 
extensively. These are propagated by placing a 
carcass of an animal or a piece of meat over 
bran, until it becomes flyblown and maggots are 
hatched and drop into the bran, from which they 
are gathered and washed to prevent bowel trou¬ 
bles in the young pheasants, then they are fed, 
the same as the ant pupae is used. The washing 
of this food is peculiar. A piece of burlap is 
stretched tightly across the receptacle upon which 
the bran is placed, and the maggots work down 
through the bran and through the burlap into 
the box, ready for feeding. Some of the pheas¬ 
ant raisers, instead of bothering in this way, sim¬ 
ply take a flyblown animal carcass and bury it 
under a light covering of earth and when the 
maggots come up through the ground they are 
found and eaten by the young birds. Sheep 
plucks are often used here for that purpose. It 
takes about fifty quarts of maggots to feed 200 
young pheasants for a week. It takes nearly a 
week to produce this kind of food ready for use. 
But there is a difficulty in the way, for it is a 
food that cannot be kept long for, if kept a few 
hours the maggots go into chrysalids and are 
lost for food purposes. To safeguard them this 
food is often placed in a cool temperature of 
about 40 degrees, and will last under those con¬ 
ditions a number of days. Meat ground up raw 
is frequently used as pheasant food, and is far 
less offensive to those who have to serve it to 
the birds. 
A stiff custard forms the first day or two feed¬ 
ing of the young pheasants. Like chickens they 
are not fed for the first 24 hours, as the egg- 
sack suffices for their sustenance during that 
period. The next advance in food is a crumbly 
mash of grain. It is not until a month has 
passed that the young birds are fed solid grain, 
and sometimes even a longer time elapses. It 
depends on the condition of the birds. The 
average feeding of the young pheasants is about 
two hours apart. 
It takes but a short time for the young birds 
to learn the calling cry of their foster mother 
and at first they respond readily to it, but as they 
grow larger, they show their wild nature by a 
proneness to wander away, and have to be care¬ 
fully safeguarded at such an age. Like chickens 
the young pheasants are liable to disease and 
often the mortality among them is large. 
The pheasants most in evidence here and which 
have been turned loose in Massachusetts covers 
where they are thriving well are the Phasianus 
colchius x torquatus, a hybrid between the Eng¬ 
lish and ringneck pheasants. It is a handsome 
bird, rich in coloring and very hardy. It is 
called here, quite often, the Mongolian pheasant 
(Phasianus mongolicus ), but is not the true 
Mongolian. 
It is 22 years ago that Massachusetts first be¬ 
gan the attempt to breed pheasants, when two 
experiment stations were started. It began with 
the setting of English ringneck pheasant eggs, 
but the first attempt proved a failure. A year 
later a few ringneck pheasants were bought in 
Oregon, and then began a determined struggle 
to raise pheasants for the stocking of the game 
covers of the state. It was an uphill job. Every¬ 
thing seemed to conspire against it. The birds 
took sick. Many died. The mortality also 
among the young pheasants was great. Eggs 
refused to hatch in many cases and weather con¬ 
ditions were in every way unfavorable. The 
next year cholera broke out among the birds and 
less than 100 were raised from a setting of 1,200 
eggs. But the game commissioners kept bravely 
at work and at last succeeded in raising several 
thousand birds. Then private individuals became 
interested, and that interest resulted in applica¬ 
tions to the commissioners for the privilege of 
raising pheasants, on part of many persons thus 
interested. The commissioners gave such per¬ 
mits and supplied considerable stock in shape of 
young pheasants for propagation purposes. 
So the work of pheasant raising has gone on 
in Massachusetts, and it has been quite success¬ 
ful. Hundreds of pheasants have been turned 
loose in the covers and seem to have done well, 
William W. Sargood, of Lee, Mass., Game 
Warden of Southern Berkshire. 
for, notwithstanding the open season each fall, 
during which hundreds of birds are killed, the 
pheasants continue to multiply, and with the as¬ 
sistance given by private individuals to the art 
of pheasant raising, the supply continues good 
and the covers are well stocked, especially in 
Birkshire County, where the best pheasant hunt¬ 
ing exists. 
Climatic condition is a very important factor 
to be considered in the raising of these birds 
for new birds have to adapt themselves to the 
flora and fauna of the country into which they 
are introduced. The severity of the New Eng¬ 
land winters often causes a high mortality among 
adult birds, even after they have apparently done 
well in the covers all through the summer and 
fall, for the deep snows cut off their food and 
many starve. Frequently flocks of from four 
to six pheasants are seen feeding in farmers’ 
barn yards, or are seen upon the premises in 
the open, searching for food. The Fish and 
Game Commissioners have urged farmers to 
throw out grain for the starving pheasants, with 
good success, and it is done quite generally in 
sections where pheasants abound. The game 
wardens often go into the woods with bags of 
grain and scatter it where the pheasants will find 
it, and in this way, many birds are assisted in 
wintering through. 
In rearing pheasants in captivity care is taken 
to have the birds fed and cared for, so far as 
possible by one person as the birds get used to 
such an attendant, and where another is intro¬ 
duced the birds are wild and shy. The attend¬ 
ant always wears the same suit of clothes when 
about his work in the pens, and it is singular to 
see how a change of apparel is noted by the 
birds, and how shy they become when such 
change is made by an attendant. 
