We have hundreds of chicks now with more hatching every day. The hens are beginning to slow down a bit, with their laying though, so the incubators are not under just as much pressure. We always seem to be chasing our tails during June as no sooner have we finished feeding chicks and washing their dishes than it is time to see to our adults in the aviaries. Once we have fed, watered and checked them we are back to cleaning, if not chick boxes - it's sheds, if not sheds - it's chick pens, if not chick pens - it's incubators and hatchers and I could go on and on but then I won't have time to get back to my chicks to feed and water them.

We have books and notes about everything. I keep records of eggs incubating and their weight loss. I write down problems with hatching. I also have to make a note of what colour of plastic rings I use on each species of chick, and which breeding pair of birds they came from, within the first day of hatching, and what pattern I add to the rings, the size and whether I put them on the chicks left or right leg as there are not enough colours of leg rings available to buy, as we have so many bloodlines from many different species and we must be careful not to mix anything up. The chicks are in the house for three days or so and once we know they are eating and drinking and they are all looking strong they go into a building next door where we have lots of heat lamps for them. The chicks are all in wooden boxes at this stage although cardboard ones would do fine as long as they don't get damp. Alan has note of which chicks are in which boxes but to complicate things we do sometimes have to move birds because if one gets picked on its health will very quickly deteriorate.

Once the chicks are a few weeks old they are moved to another larger building where they have "proper" 6' X 4' pens. Of course our notes then need adjustment again as not only are these birds in new pens but their space in the dairy (sorry, but it seemed too much effort to rename this - it really was our dairy when we had cows to milk) will be immediately taken by more chicks from the house. The better notes we keep the easier it tends to be if problems arise. Birds such as the Peacock Pheasants do tend to get moved down with far younger birds due to the fact that they are very small and not hardy even when mature. Other chicks such as the Eared Pheasants are the opposite as they grow very quickly and need to go outside as soon as possible as this has helped to stop their toes becoming crooked. As they are extremely hardy tough birds they do very well like this but it is easy to lose track of what age different birds are and if there is any we need to keep a special eye on they can sometimes be confused with another bird of the same species. Reasons for keeping a very close watch on particular birds can be varied - if we thought they were not doing quite as well as hoped or maybe it could be that a bird has been a menace to other birds they have been with, previously, so it is helpful if we know exactly where they all are.

We do also try and ring most of our chicks with permanent closed rings as they get a bit older. Each chick then has an individual number. The ring also shows the year they have hatched, the size of the ring and AP for Allandoo Pheasantry. Once again this is important partly so we can check the ring numbers in our book and make sure that birds we are selling are unrelated. Unfortunately due to the cost of the closed rings we do not want to order a huge amount that will not be needed (as they cannot be used the following year) so we try and keep to roughly what we expect to rear which does mean that there are often small numbers of birds for a few of the ring sizes which are not rung with the closed rings but we do still try and keep plastic rings on them until they leave us. We take them off then in case they get too small for the birds as they can cause horrible injuries if they dig into the birds leg.

We have many e-mails every year asking what we feed chicks. We have been using Marsdens game feed for the past couple of years and have been pleased with the consistantly good quality and service we have received. The newly hatched chicks get chick crumb, then the starter pellet which is the same but as the name suggests a bit bigger than the crumb. They then go onto an early grower pellet followed by the grower pellet which they will be on when we sell them. It is important when rearing pheasant chicks not to feed them a poultry mix as it is not high enough in the nutrients needed for pheasants especially protein.

As usual at this time of year I have loads of work to do so I'll stop for now but please, as always, if you have any questions just ask. We don't know everything but we will try and help if we can. If you wish to telephone please understand that we do not keep office hours - we spend a good part of the day outside (and don't have a secretary, just me) but if you cannot reach us leave a message and I will get back to you. If you prefer you can e-mail and again I will reply as soon as I can. All our contact details are on our Home page.

A few pheasant chicks

Chick Boxes in the "Dairy"

A Palawan Peacock Pheasant Chick - Less than a day old.