the rarer pheasants. You may have a 
farm or country home where a high 
sandy knoll covered with scrub oak and 
pine has bothered you because you 
cannot grow anything on it that will 
pay or give you satisfaction. Very 
well. You have a most ideal place for 
raising the most difficult of pheasants. 
F you chance to have a marsh that 
you consider a waste of area, an eye- 
sore, it is the most ideal place for ducks 
and swans, while a fresh-water pond, 
a small creek, or even a spring is quite 
sufficient for wild geese as geese re- 
quire damp pasture more than they do 
water, although the more difficult varie- 
ties like both. However, if you have 
only a creek, you can breed mallard 
ducks, even if you cannot succeed with 
other varities, for they, like Canada 
geese, will breed anywhere. 
If you want to breed birds for the 
table and for shooting purposes only 
and want quantity rather than rare 
and valuable game birds, the following 
can be bred in number: wild turkeys; 
sharp tail grouse; Hungarian par- 
tridges; Chinese ringneck pheasants; 
Mongolian ringneck pheasants; bob 
white quail; California valley quail; 
great tinamou; black swans; Canada 
geese; mallard and pin-tail ducks. All 
of these will breed readily and in quan- 
tity. 
You may, however, prefer to have 
more beautiful birds that are not so 
common as these, the rarer wild game 
birds that are so gorgeous and color- 
ful, so that you may see them about 
your place, as tame as the flock of 
pigeons flying high above in circles, 
eating out of your hand. If such birds 
become too numerous for your place 
you can sell them for more money to 
fanciers who also like to have rare and 
beautiful birds. In such case, if you 
do not look after your birds yourself, 
you must procure the right kind of 
man to manage your place. 
N no account undertake to train 
a man as this training will cost 
you thousands of dollars in valuable 
birds. You must select a man who is 
well educated in the science and art of 
raising wild game birds, a man who 
really likes the work. A man who 
knows how, yet who merely works in 
this line because it is a livelihood, is 
no good; he must be really interested 
in the work—a “bug” or “nut”? when it 
comes to birds. I remember a friend 
who watched his man quietly and 
chanced to see him pick up a bird and 
kiss it. This alone is not a recommen- 
dation of the man’s worthiness, as the 
bird did not want to be kissed, though 
it would probably prefer that to being 
shot. But this man chanced also to be 
an ignorant man because he knew noth- 
718 
ing about the food most suitable for 
the stomachs of the baby upland game 
birds. Spend the winter looking for 
a good man to run your birds if you 
are not doing the work yourself. You 
will want the-man to have a wife, as 
women are worth more than men on a 
game farm. They seem to handle the 
baby birds with more success. Also 
read Herbert K. Job’s book on breed- 
ing wild birds, as well as Jack Miner’s 
book on his bird friends. 
This month of December is a good 
month to consider just what you will 
do for the year 1926. Game breeders 
should see that stock birds are well 
quartered for the winter months. Even 
the tenderer birds should not be put in 
a greenhouse, as this will give them 
tuberculosis. All the birds must have 
fresh air without drafts. Bendick Bros. 
of Leduc, Alberta, put a great pile of 
weed seeds on the floor of a large barn, 
and even delicate birds, such as blue 
winged teal, whose feet are the ten- 
derest of all, came safely through the 
winter. 
HEN I visited their farm last 
January, the temperature was 
24 below zero, yet I saw over twenty 
varieties of wild ducks (no mallards) 
on the earthen floor of a huge barn. 
When I stepped on the weed seeds my 
feet slipped into them over my ankles. 
There was a small stove in the center 
of the barn just large enough to keep 
the little pond of water from freezing. 
Though the place was full of swans, 
geese, ducks and teal, yet the floor was 
clean, the air was fresh. Using a stove 
in such manner is common sense. But 
when a breeder uses steam heat, be- 
sides having the clear winter’s sun 
shining through clear glass, the combi- 
nation makes a heat that is thoroughly 
destructive to the lungs of the birds. 
Even without the sun’s heat, and using 
only steam heat, the result is the same. 
On all mild days, the tender birds 
should be let out for a ramble even in 
the snow. In this way, they gradually 
become hardy. Too sudden a change 
will kill tender birds. Down in south- 
ern Missouri, at Joplin, Dr. H. C. Vin- 
cent kept three varieties of rare, beau- 
tiful game and ornamental birds in an 
open building that was closed on the 
north, east and west sides, also on top. 
He left perches for the birds also, in- 
stead of knocking them down on cold 
nights. One night, the thermometer 
went to 18 below zero. The vulturine 
guineafowl had their feet frozen; one 
of the crown pigeons had its feet 
frozen, while another had only the toes 
frozen; the Nicobar pigeons were in- 
tact. I saw the crown pigeon that 
lived, walking around last June minus 
its toes, but feeling and looking quite 
peppy. The vulturine guineafowl were 
walking around on _ stumps, which 
shows that while they are not hardy, 
they are really tough. 
Good ventilation, cleanliness and a 
reasonable amount of room for exer- 
cise is required by all waterfowl and 
upland game birds this month. 
There are some foods that are per- 
fectly safe to feed all game birds this 
month: bran, grit, charcoal, chopped 
alfalfa, and green food such as cab- 
bage, carrots, turnips, mangels. But 
beware of feeding too much heavy 
grains. Never give them more than 
they will eat. Give quail, grouse, par- 
tridges, pheasants, peafowl, etc., a 
good mixture of grains such as fat 
oats, buckwheat, sunflower seed, Kaffir 
corn, flax. Cut down wheat, barley 
and cracked corn to the smallest mini- 
mum. 
AT oats and whole corn are best 
for swans and geese, with green 
hay and lots of snow when it is avail- 
able. Fine gravel, too. Ducks should 
have sand, mud, fat oats, brown rice, 
cracked corn and finely chopped green 
alfalfa, with a little animal food such 
as fish, or meat finely chopped. If you 
are near a baker get his left over brown 
bread and let the geese, ducks and 
swans have some during the very cold 
weather. If you are near a mill you 
can procure wheat scréenings that are 
known as seconds, costing you from 
nothing to $20.00 a ton at most. It is 
the bulk and rubbish in this cheap food 
that makes it safe food for the galli- 
naceous game birds. Heavy feeding 
of rich grains, such as wheat, makes 
the birds constipated. Don’t think, be- 
cause you shot sharp tail grouse 
around a wheat stack, that you can 
feed them on wheat, for wheat, except 
in minute quantities, will surely kill 
sharp tails and prairie chickens. Feed 
them weed seeds. For every grain of 
wheat that pheasants and grouse de- 
stroy, they eat one hundred insects and 
one thousand weed seeds. So game 
birds are far more useful than they 
are destructive. 
Do not worry about your wild tur- 
keys this month, except to provide them 
with adequate protection from the 
great horned owls. Cold, wet, snow, 
wind, will not bother them and they 
will roost out of doors on the trees 
near your house. 
NE well known eastern game 
breeder told me that he could do 
nothing with pure bred wild turkey 
hens, that he had to have just a little 
domestic blood in the hens. Now, if 
you have a house on the open prairie 
and there are no trees round about ex- 
cept those near your house, you need 
not bother about this as the wildest 
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