Abby has come a long way since I first took her chukar hunting at six-months old (her first hunt). Now, two years later and heading into her 3rd full hunting season she is showing real signs of greatness. This year Abby is getting a lot of birds by working with me as a hunting guide at a pheasant hunting preserve. She is holding her points well and is steady to shot about 60% if the time. She is learning to run down winged and wounded birds and is getting better at finding dead birds that she didn’t mark when multiple birds go down.

One thing that she does well is retrieving. Abby has a soft mouth and loves to bring birds back. She seems to know who shot the bird and often delivers the bird to the hunter who made the kill. Abby is quite agressive for a female and will try to steel a retrieve from another dog that beats her to the downed bird. We are working on this.

Had a great hunt yesterday with George and his son Chaz and his son-in-law. They were the first hunters of the season at Rooster Valley Pheasant Preserve where I am helping out as a guide. It was Chaz’s first time hunting pheasants and I think we got him hooked. They ended up with about 15 pheasants and they picked up a couple of dove along the way. George was hunting with his two labs “Blue” and “Sophie” and they did well together. I enjoyed putting the birds out and keeping an eye on their progress throughout the day.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Heading to Green River tomorrow to pick up 1000 day-old ringneck pheasant chicks. Had a blast last year raising 500 chukar chicks. I will be working more closely this year with my friend and mentor Russ Peterson at Rooster Valley Pheasants. I will be selling most of the birds directly to him for use on his hunting preserve. I will keep a few pheasant for myself for dog training purposes and perhaps as breeders for next year. Russ usually raises two batches of pheasant chicks each year. We are hoping with the addition of my brooder rooms and grow-out pens we will be able to avoid raising a second batch in July when the weather is hotter. Mortality rates seem to be much better here in May and June before the Summer heat really turns on. It seems to be easier to warm the chicks up than to cool them down if too hot.

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.

Russ was kind enough to invite the fathers and sons in our town for a pheasant hunt. Many of the youth had never shot a pheasant before or had seen pointing dogs at work. Russ always starts with a safety talk and gives some pointers on shooting. Each of the boys in my group were able to shoot a pheasant. A few of my neighbors commented on my dogs “Wow, we didn’t know you had this kind of dogs”. I was proud of Abby and Annie, they looked sharp. Thanks to John Jacks, Sterling Lee, Wade Peterson and JJ & Jeff Brewer for volunteering as guides and dog handlers. We had a 1:1 adult to youth ratio which helped to keep things safe and fun. It’s always fun to bring young people into the field and teach them to hunt. All of the boys learned to clean their own birds and we had a delicious dutch oven dinner with smoked pheasant and taters. Thanks to Tom & Bess Christensen and Russ & Carol Peterson for preparing the meal. The hunt was a big success.

Yesterday we snuck over to the Rooster Valley Pheasants hunting preserve to get our fix until next season. We took our new land-lord Jared J. Jensen with us since he loves hunting waterfowl. He couldn’t decide which shotgun to bring on a pheasant hunt and I told him a 10 gauge was a little much. After some searching he finally found a couple boxes of number six shot in his arsenal. The hunting was tough since we were hunting “wild” across the river from the preserve. Jared was able to knock down a couple of nice roosters and we had a great time working the dogs. Sterling Lee and John Jacks were also hunting with us. Their dogs Biff and Trigger did well.

It was fun to take some time to visit with Russ Peterson after the hunt, as the owner of Rooster Valley Pheasants he always has some good tips to help us find some birds. He said he had just jumped 3 more roosters while working a puppy of his along the river. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go and chase them down. We hope to get out again next week. The season at the hunting preserve closes on March 31st.