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.

When we moved the pheasant chicks out to the big flight pens last week I decided to gather the remaining hens from last years batch and a couple of big healthy roosters and bring them back to the barn. After a few hours of settling in they were laying eggs all over the place. I tried to create some better nesting spots in the barn to encourage laying in the same spot. The first day I gathered eggs I got 23 from thirty something hens. I'm gathering them twice daily and getting them ready to incubate. I ordered some trays today from Cutlers Supply that will double the capacity of my GQF 1202 Sportsman incubator.

I got this old wheat grinder for making my own quail feed. I have a custom feed producer close by that mixes great feed but he can't chop it fine enough for the baby quail chicks. So I take the feed and run it throug the grinder to make a finer feed for the first few weeks. After 3-4 weeks the quail can transition to the heavier feed that I am feeding to the pheasant chicks. It's hard to grasp how much smaller the quail chicks are compared to the pheasant chicks. I am looking for recipes on grinding my own feed from scratch.

After looking at several designs on the web and talking to Dave Walker about quail recall pens, we decided on this design. This is my friend Chris Colt of Cove Mountain Kennels helping me build the recall pen. The frame is out of 2x2 lumber and we screwed the joints together with 3" exterior grade screws. The overall dimensions are about 36" X 18" X 72". I had some 36" tall 1/2" X 1/2" wire on hand or we would have built it 96 inches long.

We glued the joints and used 1" screws and finish nails to apply the 1/2" plywood back, top and sides. With the frame finished and the plywood on we wrapped the wire around the front half of the pen and stapled it with 1" staples. We have a trap door on top for inserting food and water and the whole front end is a giant door for releasing the quail. We hope to attach a string-pull mechanism for lifting the release door.

We were pleased that the finished product was fairly light and easily lifted by two guys. It should be easy to move around with my Polaris Ranger or by tossing it in the back of the truck. We hope to build another pen just like and set them both in the training fields nearby. We added a perch inside the pen but the quail don't seem to have any interest in using it. The cost for all the materials was less than $75 and it took us about 6 hours to build it. We will apply some paint or wood sealer before moving it outside to the training grounds.

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.

After attending the Dave Walker dog training seminar, I decided I wanted to buy some quail for dog training. Quail are a great bird for training a dog to be steady to wind and shot as they hold as a covey. If your dog creeps in on a point the birds usually flush all together and hopefully your dog learns to be ready for more birds after the flush. I bought these little guys at 3 weeks old from a local Utah breeder named Travis Proctor. For now they are surviving in my small brooder table. Hope to get a bigger pen built for them in the next week or so.

The pheasant and chukar chicks are 15 days old now and are starting to feather out nicely. Yesterday, I removed one of my circles in the brooder room since some are able to fly over it now. I will leave the remaining circle for a couple more days to give the smaller birds a chance to catch up. Also, we had a cold snap last night and we awoke to snow on the mountain. It is supposed to be Summer right now but at least it didn't freeze last night. I did light up the propane heater during the night. I haven't used it in nearly a week since the weather has been warmer.

I have had to raise the nipple waterers up a bit each week as the birds grow. I think it is important to make sure they have to reach a bit to get the water. I think it helps them build up their leg strength and muscles which should all make for better flying birds in a few months. This theory is not very scientific but I do think it helps to keep the birds strong. It is still very difficult to tell the difference between the chukar chicks and the pheasant chicks. As the feathers grow in the distinction will become obvious.

Here you can see the feather coming in nicely. Most of the birds are starting to try flapping their wings a bit and practicing 2-3 foot test flights. It is pretty funny to watch as they are a bit clumsy at this age. As I remove the next circle and give the chicks full access to the brooder room they will start to fly a little more each day. At 5 1/2 weeks exactly we will put the blinders on them and release them into the large outside flight pens.

Had a great time at the Dave Walker dog training seminar yesterday at the Lee Kay Center in Salt Lake City. I was a little disappointed in the turnout from the local crowd, but the smaller group made for an excellent day for those of us that were there. We were all able to get one-on-one training and advice from Dave while he worked with each of our dogs several times. Here is a picture of Dave working with my Brittany dog Annie. I was able to learn several things that will help me and Annie get to the next level which is steady to wing and shot.

Two highlights for me were first winning the brand new Tri-tronics Pro 500 G2 EXP Training collar in the raffle. I have been wanting a 2-3 dog training collar system for quite a while. The Tri-Tronics collar is as good as it gets and is over a $500 value. This is the model that Dave Walker uses as well. The second highlight for me was the privilege of buying Dave Walker dinner after the long day and to just chat with and get to know him better. Besides being a hall of fame dog trainer he is also a real down-to-earh person and a true gentleman. Thanks to Dave and his friend Charles for taking the time to come down to Utah. I took a lot of notes and got much more than my money's worth. Thanks to the folks at the Wasatch Front Brittany Club for hosting the event.

I highly recommend Dave Walker's book "The Bird Dog Training Manual". The book is a culmination of more than 3 decades of dog training wisdom. I didn't have my checkbook at the seminar so I ordered the book online from his website. His methods are sound and humane and when you see them put into practice you will be an instant convert. If you ever have a chance to attend one of Dave's seminars, don't miss it.

As a whole the birds are doing well. I am careful to keep the feeders full of feed so they don't peck at each other. I have to increase the temperature at night using the propane heater. The weather was cold for a few days and I had to use the propane all day. One propane bottle will last me about 36 hours on high heat. The weather has been warmer laely and I can turn the propane off during the daytime. So far, we have only lost about 20 chicks. I am keeping a journal and logging temps, feedings and mortality several times daily.

Started with a two hour drive to Green River, UT to pick up the chicks from Hatt's Ranch game bird hatchery. Seemed like a large operation as one of their employees told me this week they hatched 40,000 chicks. There were 29 boxes in all totaling somewhere around 4,000 chicks. We didn't chat much at the hatchery, just got loaded and headed for home to get the birds settled.

When we got home I unboxed the birds and removed them all by hand and placed them in the brooder circles. Russ took the bulk of the chicks (21 boxes) to his house for brooding in the big brooder barn. I took home 8 boxes and ended up with two boxes of chukar chicks, one of mutant pheasants, and the rest ringnecks.

We have a custom chick starter chopped for us locally, about a 32% protein medicated feed. I like to use a few of the pads out of the shipping boxes to double the feed availability during the first week or so. The chicks seem to eat this food before they figure out the trough feeders have feed in them too.

The temp around the inside of the brooder hood is around 100 degrees, and initially they held pretty tight under the hood for warmth. Within minutes they were circulating and finding the feeders and shipping pads with food on them. I was amazed that there was not one dead bird out of the 8 boxes I opened (about 1000 chicks).

I use the nipple waterers from the folks at Nature's Way. It is fascinating how the day-old chicks seem to know exactly what to do to get the water. One of the nipples had a bit of a leak, but I left it alone as a lot of the birds were drinking from it.

The temperature is absolutely crucial during the first few weeks of life. I keep a couple thermometers laying around and take frequent readings to make sure things stay consistent. If the chicks get too cold they start to bunch up and pile on each other suffocating those on the bottom. If they are too hot they will hold their wings and appear to be panting. If they are cheaping and moving around then all is well.

I brought my propane radiant heater in to help keep the temps up during the night as it is supposed to be a bit cold for a few days. Last year I used a camp chef propane cooking stove as that's all I had available. I also have a spare bottle of propane standing by in case I run out.

After I got the birds settled in and felt like all was well for a minute, I headed over to Russ's pheasant farm to see how his chicks were doing. He has four big circles (10-12 feet across) with natural gas powered brooder hoods. He has taught me that sitting and watching the birds is the best way to keep track of their health and wellness. I'll check the birds every couple hours for the first 24 hours or so. Things can go downhill fast.

I spent all day yesterday getting the brooder rooms prepared for the chicks. I scrubbed down everything with a water/clorox mixture to disinfect and clean. Tonight I will turn on the heat lamps and get the brooder rooms warmed up 12-24 hours before the birds arrive. We use 1/4" welded wire for our circles and the nipple waterers from Nature's Way. The ground inside the circles is covered with pine shavings and great care is taken to keep temperatures warm enough. I will have to supplement my heat lamps with a propane radiant heater as freezing temps are common here in late May and early June. The first few days are always a little stressful, but hopefully things will go smoothly. I'll post some pics when the birds arrive tomorrow.

A messy part of the puppy growth and development process is the weaning of the pups from momma dog. During this important transition from the mother's milk to solid foods there are several tricks that breeders use to make things go smoothly. Commonly, the first introduction to solid foods will be a heated mash containing puppy food, milk and water. The only problem with the popular puppy mash is that it is extremely messy. No matter what you do - the puppies seem to want to jump right into the mash and get it everywhere. This is how they learn that dog food is good to eat. But, I've found a way to help keep things a little cleaner.

A cool idea I found on the internet is a simple wooden feeder stall built to isolate the puppies to their very own food dish (Notice the blocker boards in the back of each stall to help keep the dish from flipping up if pup gets his paws up on the front edge of the dish). This helps to keep things a little cleaner and gives all the pups an equal chance at the food trough. You will still have to watch them closely because there always seems to be a pig in the litter who inhales food and moves on to the next food dish when his is gone. Or on the flip side, the timid puppy that may need a little extra encouragement during the transition to solid foods. The puppy feeder stalls seems like a good idea to me.