It won’t be long now before the fall hunting season kicks off here in Utah. Firs off is the dove hunt which opens on September 1st. I have been trying to get my dogs into shape after a lazy summer of doing nothing. I can tell that they are a little soft and will take a few weeks to get the fat burned off. I took some quail out today and let Abby point a few and she was holding real nicely. I hope to get her a lot of birds this year as I plan to guide a lot more for Rooster Valley Pheasant Hunting Preserve here in town. It seems like nothing brings a dog along faster than birds, birds and even more birds.

We ended up with 52 chicks hatched out of 80 eggs set in the incubator. On day 29 we cracked the remaining eggs and here is what we found. 3 eggs began to hatch but were too weak to finish, they died in the shell from general weakness. 14 eggs had somewhat developed embryos that did not grow to full term for one reason or another. 11 of the pheasant eggs had yolks and were infertile. I felt pretty good about the results of our first try hatching pheasant eggs with an incubator.

The birds are one week old now and are settling into a routine. We lost 4 chicks on day 2 but haven’t lost any since. They are eating well and staying nice and toasty in my insulated shop. I like to use paper plates for feeders for the first week or two so they have plenty of eating opportunities. After that we switch to the small trough-style feeders. For water I am just using the simple quart jar waterers. With such a small batch I didn’t want to set up the big brooder rooms with nipple waterers and the whole nine yards. There are 63 more eggs in the incubator but I doubt we will have great numbers since we are so late in the season. The roosters seemed to lose interest towards the middle of July.

Today when I was checking the birds in the flight pens I noticed this old Mutant Hen sitting pretty tight in the weeds. I thought it was odd that she was holding so tight while the other younger birds scattered as I approached. This hen is a hold-over from last years hunting stock. I gathered most of them up and put them in a breeder pen, but opted to leave the mutants out of the mix.

Upon further inspection I found the reason why she was holding so tight. She was sitting on a nest full of her own eggs. I got in for a closer look and felt that the eggs were quite warm to the touch. The nest site was in some heavy weeds that were over 3 feet tall. You can see the stalks are bare where the pheasants have been grazing as high as they could reach.

I was thrilled to hear a little peep while I was down on my hands and knees inspecting the nesting site. I had heard that sometimes hens will actually set on their nest with enough commitment to get a hatch. Most of the time though, these captive birds just lay their eggs and never come back to them. This mutant hen obviously was doing a great job. I found this little chick a few feet from the nest, and then the mutant chick about 20 feet further in the weeds.

My daughter Hannah helped me gather them up and take them back home to the brooder where we are caring for some pheasant chicks that are about the same age. Before throwing them in with the rest of the chicks I marked their legs so I could keep track of their progress. I always wondered if mother nature did it better. We’ll see if they turn out to be stronger or healthier than the chicks that I hatched out.

Today marks day 23 on my incubator calendar. I went out this morning to check on the eggs and noticed a few with small crack forming on the tops of the shells. Out of about 80 eggs I only noticed about 25 that were starting to crack. I went about my chores and did some weeding around the garden.

I came back two hours later and couldn’t see any change. I was getting ready to go to work when I heard a bird cheaping. I opened my GQF 1202 incubator and way in the very back row there was this guys busting out early. He is the guy in the video, my early bird pheasant chick.

I came home a few hours later during lunch and there was a second bird out of his shell. I moved them both into the hatcher where they could dry off and get some fresh food and mostly rest. When I went to bed there was some progress but no more hatches.