Our Pheasantry in December 2007
We have a few jobs that must be done within the next couple of months. One of these is to add some extra shelving to our incubation room. We need to have space for at least an extra two, maybe three, incubators plus their humidity management modules and water containers. We are also needing extra chick rearing pens made. Alan is kept very busy doing lots of building as I keep planning more birds. This year we are extremely pleased as we have bought in some beautiful Silver and Swinhoe pheasants and also some gorgeous and very delicate Palawan pheasants. We will have more to tell about these lovely birds at a later date once we have had more experience with them.
As we have had a deluge of rain lately our time is being spent adding lots of sand and gravel to the aviaries. This is quite a regular job, which just needs topped up every now and then, especially at this time of year. The eared pheasants, in particular, get themselves in a right mess as they dig continuously and don't seem content until they have their aviary looking like a bomb site.
This month we have another thousand shrubs to plant. Hopefully the weather will stay mild as we should really have had this done in November but the plants would not have lasted 5 minutes with all the chicks we had in the aviaries. About three - four hundred of the plants will be used as hedgerow at the top and bottom of one of our aviaries (aviary C) and the rest will be in the pens themselves. We have bought Leylandii for a thick hedge and also to cut to give us extra soft and long lasting cover for hens to hide under or nest on and for young chicks to hide among. We also bought Barberry, Wild rose, Willow and Elder to add to an existing hedgerow which was partly eaten by calves two years ago. For inside the aviaries we have Dogwood, Laurel, willow and Cotoneaster as well as using what is left after planting our hedge although we will not include any of the thorny shrubs. We bought small quantities of Alder, Bird cherry and Oak to plant close to the aviary as we want to plant more native trees. We would love to plant a forest but our funds and time are too limited at the moment so we will have to wait for our "grand plans".
Things have quietened down now, which at this time of year, is a great relief. The aviaries have a chance to recover (and us) from all the hustle and bustle of the previous season. Our adult birds which have been shunted about a bit to make way for the huge amount of chicks will be put back into their breeding pairs. We had split some pairs to have pens with a few hens in them and other pens with only cocks. This way we could manage some extra aviaries which alongside others used only for chicks or emergency pens gave us ample space for all the years chicks. Now we have the task of moving birds around again to have them well settled before the breeding season. Because we have safety passages in each of our sets of aviaries the majority of the birds need only be walked along to their new home. This is rarely stressful for them at all. In fact many of the birds seem to enjoy their little walk and the change of scenery. A few of our birds will not be moved until the hens start to lay eggs. This includes a Golden pheasant cock, a Himalayan Monal cock and an Ijima Copper cock pheasant as well as their mates. The reason for this is that all of these cock birds have attacked their hens in the past. If we wait until after the hens start to lay before pairing them up, although we may have a few infertile eggs, the cocks seem to have calmed down and get on with their partners pretty well. We have not had any deaths or near deaths, due to attack, once breeding has started. Before this time the cocks can be extremely nasty, sometimes, with fatal consequences.
I want to leave you with a couple of pictures of handles we now have on the majority of our aviary gates. We have often been told this year how clever they are so I thought I would let you see them. They are actually the idea of a fellow pheasant breeder called Ben Weston. They have worked brilliantly as it does not matter that the wood contracts and expands with the weather. When we were using bolts they would not always be properly in line, because of the wood swelling, which meant they were sometimes difficult to open.
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Allandoo Pheasantry
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