Blinders On 4000 Pheasants
At approximately 5 1/2 weeks we put blinders on all of the pheasant chicks to help with pecking problems. Pheasants are very canabalistic and will peck each other to death every chance they get. These blinders are a simple way of solving the problem with minimal impact on the health of the pheasants. It took us about 4 hours to put these blinders on about 4,000 pheasant chicks. We had 8 guys to do the job, two were catching chicks with nets while the other 6 guys applied the blinders.
The first 24 hours after the birds have their new blinders installed they are a little clumsy. We try to help them out by placing more feed and water pans out where they basically trip over them. After a week of transition time I remove a few of the additional pans as they learn where the main feed and water troughs are located.
With daytime temps reaching close to one hundred degrees the birds were in desperate need of shade. Usually the weeds and grass in the flight pens are grown up high enough to do the trick. Because of a late spring we had to provide some additional shade and shelter via a tarp and several peices of plywood set up as lean-to shelters. After a week or two of transition time the care and feeding gets a lot easier. The water troughs have a float and auto-fill system providing plenty of fresh clean water.
