Agressive Breeders

[cabinlife]

I have a beautiful Melanistic Mutant male pheasant that keeps killing and or injuring the hens in his pen.  A few weeks ago I removed all of the hens to let them heal up, (gashes on heads, backs torn open wing feathers pulled out & just a bloody mess), well, they healed up &  yesterday afternoon I put two hens back in with him.  In less than one hour both hens were featherless, & bleeding.  He just kept mounting them over & over & pulled all of the feathers out of their heads with his beak & it looks like his spurs & nails ripped opens their backs & sides.  Needless to say I removed both hens again.  
The pen they are in is roughly about 16ft X 10ft.
Is there any hope for this male as a breeder or is he just going to kill all of the hens.  This is my first year breeding & I'm not sure if this is normal.  Any suggestions are appreiciated.
-Jessica, New York

[penny's dad]

MY WIFE COOKS A PRETTY GOOD PHEASANT AND DUMPLING STEW. WHY DON'T YOU TRY IT!  P.D.

[jchiar]

sounds like pennys dad has a perfect solution

[Pheasant Hollow Farm]

Why not try a full hood instead of peepers if you are using them and cutting his toe nails.

Your pen size indicate 160 sqft. If you are giving each bird 20sqft. this would be enough space of 8 birds. How high is the pen and do you have any areas in the pen for the birds to hide.

Steve
Pheasant Hollow Farm

[cabinlife]

The height of the pen is about 6-8 feet.  There are places for the hens to hide.  As soon as the hens see him coming the just bend down & freeze & totally submit.  

I really don't want to cook this one up since he is so large & nice looking & I get lots of offspring from him.  (I do cook up about 1/2 of his offspring).

[Pheasant Hollow Farm]

You still didn't answer the question on whether or not you have peepers or tried to cut his toe nails.

Steve
Pheasant Hollow Farm

[cabinlife]

Sorry,  he has those peepers that don't go all the way through his nose.  & I have not as of yet tried to cut his nails/spurs,  I will try that this weekend.  Shouldn't those peepers help with him pulling feathers out of the hens heads also?  Or do I need those things that go around the beak?

[Pheasant Hollow Farm]

cabinlife,

Sorry, he has those peepers that don't go all the way through his nose. & I have not as of yet tried to cut his nails/spurs, I will try that this weekend. Shouldn't those peepers help with him pulling feathers out of the hens heads also? Or do I need those things that go around the beak?

It seems for the amount of aggressivenes on the cock bird, I would be prone to put a hood on him instead of the standard peeper. This would totally block his view head on.

 This you can buy  from Cutlers supply http://www.cutlersupply.com/cgi-bin/store/agora.cgi?cart_id=4166944.3053*0F1sM&p_id=0297&xm=on&ppinc=display-np

You will also need the plastic pin to insert through the nose.

If you only need one complete set, email me your address and I will mail you one. My email address is skaybird@zzzip.net

By the way, I would not attempt to cut the spurs, they will bleed.

Steve
Pheasant Hollow Farm

[cabinlife]

Thank you very much for the info, I will order them today, might as well put them on the other males before they start also.

[cabinlife]

Steve, I was just looking at your website, I grew up on long island also, Garden City.

[Pheasant Hollow Farm]

Steve, I was just looking at your website, I grew up on long island also, Garden City.  

What a small world. When did you leave Long Island? I don't miss it in the least.

What does it cost permit wise? I know they have 3 classifications. Here in WV, the cost is $10.00 per year. I can do anything I want with this permit.

I can sell, release, eat, and hunt birds. I can sell or give away eggs for consumables or sell them as hatching eggs.

The only hassle is the paperwork.

Well, do you need the hood?

Steve
Pheasant Hollow Farm

[cabinlife]

No, I will not need the hood, I'm going to order a bunch so I can put them on all of the males.

I moved off of Long Island around 5 years ago, I don't miss it either.  I went down last weekend for my sisters bachalorett party, it took 3 1/2 hours in traffic to go 110 miles!!!!!  The housing prices are through the roof.  In Garden City you can't find a house for under $600,000.00 & in Point Lookout (By long beach) you cant find one for under $500,000.00

There are a few different Game Bird Breeder Licenses here:
Class B- can only release or consume the birds yourself, no selling or trading, $10.00/yr
Class A-can sell, raise, release, trade.

Game Bird preserve- not sure of price, must have 50 acres or more & can hunt the longer season.

The only paperwork that I need to do yearly is a count of how many birds I have at the end of April & which types.  I don't need to tell them how many ornamental pheasants I have but they need to be on my license.  They seem to only want to know the number of Ringnecks/game birds with a season.  No one came to inspect my set up yet, they said with a small number of birds they usually don't come check.  Right now I have about 40 birds & about half of them are ones that I have been hatching since Christmas the rest I am using for breeders.  

I only have 6 1/2 acres that is mostly wooded so releasing them has not been great, just been butchering.  My taxidermist has a bunch of property near me that has fields, might release a bunch there this season.

[cabinlife]

I started with the class B license but now I have the class A so I can sell or trade.  Traded a few for some top flight netting.

[Pheasant Hollow Farm]

cabinlife,

Put the hoods on the hens as well. This will keep the pecking down to the utmost. The cock birds will be disorientated for a while but they will eventually start to mate once again.

I have always used the econo peepers. These work great up until the birds head and eye spread is past the peepers. Then they fight as if the peepers never existed.

When you order the hoods, get the cheapest plastic pins. Just go on culters supply and you will see them. The old peepers can be used over and over again countless times as well as the hoods. When I sell my birds, I leave the econo peepers on for the client. The birds with the hoods, if they want them is an extra $1.00.

When we sold our home in Bay Shore, we got $139,990.00 in May of 2000. The houses in my old neighborhood are now going for over $350,000.00!
This area is an old development established the 1950's and the cost of building a 2 bedroom, one bath and an attach garage along with a 3rd ac. was $5,000.00.

The houses that are still in original condition with no up grades are selling now for over $175.500. What a rip off, and to think I bought my house as an original 2 bedroom with also a detached garage in 1973 for $26,000.00.

In WV, the paperwork I have is 3 forms. LE-32, which is the yearly transfer/receive, log. The LE-33B is the disposition/transfer record. This is 3 part NCR. I keep a copy, the DNR (same as DEC) gets a copy and the person who now has the birds gets a copy. This form is supposed to be mailed in to the DNR office within 15 days. The LE-33A is a birth/death certificate. Same thing, 15 days to mail it in. So if you decide to butcher your birds, you have to mail in a death certificate, stating the cause of death and how you disposed of the carcass.

There is more control on the wild game birds in this state then there is on controlled drugs.

At the end of the year your bird number have to match up. If you say you have 1000 birds it better be 1000 birds, no more and no less. I get inspected every Jan. and all records have to be kept for 3 years.

Have a nice evening!

Steve
Pheasant Hollow Farm

[cabinlife]

Wow, they really make you guys work for licenses.  That is a lot of paperwork & record keeping.