Max Loves Puppies
We went to visit my neighbor and Max had to say hi and pet all the guide dogs at the pheasant farm. Since my neighbor is all but done with pheasants I thought I would hit him up for some leftover feed. My laying hens are eating quite a bit and the bags of laying pellets from the local feed store is getting expensive at $16.00 for a 50lb bag. The stuff Russ is feeding his pheasants is a pretty high protein mix that he buys in bulk from our neighbor who mixes his own hog feed. I wanted to see how my chickens liked it before I comitted to buying a ton of this homemade feed. So far the chickens seem to love it.
Max loves to go with me to do chores and run errands. He wears his cowboy boots everywhere and is contantly tasting new rocks and dirt. Russ let Max help feed the horses which he talked about for hours. He will be two years old in April but is already quite a handful. He especially loves animals and has them broke down into three categories. All livestock are considered “Moos”, all dogs are called “puppies” and anything with wings is a “Chickie”. After gathering the eggs I had to drag Max inside because he didn’t want to stop shoveling manure in the barn. Russ is trying to talk me into rasing 500 Chukar Partridge to compliment his pheasant farm operation. It could work out well for me to have access to birds for dog training.
Two things I wish we had in our area. Quail and Chukar that I could buy and train with. If you were to raise birds I gaurntee you would sell all you had! I run field trials. And finding birds to train with in our area can be tough!! There are several guys in our area getting into trialing. We dont have the time to raise our own birds but would buy several hundred a year if they were available. Birds can be a heck of a money maker. Not only for training but also supplying trials with birds. That could be several hundred birds for each trial! Figure quail at 3.50 a bird at 500 birds per trial and 8 trials a year! Let alone what you could sell for training and to Russ.