Pheasants killing other pheasants

[Fivehollers]

It is too late to do anything about this but we attempted to hatch pheasants, out of 7 eggs we got 3 to hatch, the other 4 exploded in the incubator, yucky, stinking mess. We raised the trio and had them in a huge cage 16' by 11'. The female killed the other female right off, but then the male killed the remaining female. Now we have this beautiful male, that we are going to have mounted, heehee, but what made him do this? I would like to try again but would like to know if we did something wrong.

[jchiar]

what kind of pheasants are they , how old .birds are very cannabalistic but sounds like there was enough room, any  places for birds to hide just mount the cockbird that will teach him

[Reeves]

I'll bet they are/were Ring Neck !

Try another species next time. Remember that you'll only be able to keep one male (of any species) in with the hens from about 4-6 months old.

[Fivehollers]

Reeves, we would like to get another female for "Skippy" we did not kill him after all, he is just too pretty. I don't think he is a regular ring-neck because his eyes have larger than normal red patches. We think he is a mixture. If I could figure out how to put a picture on this web site I would send one. Anyhoo....we really would like to get a female for him but I am afraid he will kill her as well. How big a pen should he be in?

[Bobwhite quail24]

Don't they make a ring to put over their beak to stop that?

[Reeves]

Red patches: I'll take that as a yes to Ring Necks.

176 sq. ft. pen is not huge (my Amherst pen is 576 sq. ft.)...but should be OK for a trio of Ring Necks. Do they have places to hide, is it landscaped ?
You mention the "red" is too big, maybe because of breeding season ? I'll PM my addy so you can send a pic. May take time to answer, as I just got called back to work.
Although I raised Ring Neck Pheasants in the past, I'm no expert on them. They are nasty towards each other, so I have nothing to do with them.

One more thought. If you suspect they may be some sort of cross, breeding them is a bad idea.

[Fivehollers]

Skippy is a ring-neck but he looks like a cross between a regular ring neck and a chinese ring-necked pheasant, because of the size of the red patch around his eyes. I have been wanting to raise some Reeves' along with some more Ring-neck, but to put them on the ground is almost certain death due to predation, if our quail season goes as well as it has started, we are going to upgrade our electric fence system and I will be able to build some ground pens for larger birds. For now Skippy will just have to be alone. The only reason I would breed him is for meat, because I don't believe he is a pure ring-neck.  Thanks all for your input.

Lori

[Reeves]

looks like a cross between a regular ring neck and a chinese ring-necked pheasant

Huh ?

[bgsbirds]

ringnecks are, from all the info i have read, the same - chinese ringnecks are called that because all ringnecks came from china.  you do have mutations such as the blueback ringneck. still a ringneck though.  they are very aggressive especcially when 5 weeks old and older.  they start feather pulling with the tail feathers.  not just on each other but i had quail in with my 5-6 week olds, had to move them, they were pulling the back feathers off them.  a guy that has raised gamebirds, currently turkeys came by and bought 2 pr of mallards said to put in an adult guinea hen with them and they will stop the feather pulling,  will try as soon as i can get one.  yours sounds like a very aggressive bird, try blinders  they are inexpensive and easy to put on.  keeps the bird from being able to see directly ahead so it makes it harder to get ahold of another bird's feathers.