Breeding Phesants to free range???

[annabell254]

Ok, so it is my understanding that pheasants do not free range well at all and except for rare cases they will go wild or die...but there are rare cases...so why cant we begin to breed the wild out of them??? most of our current domesticated pets were once wild and now are quite tame...with generations of selective breeding for traits like human bonding, calmness, and desire to roost in the same place every night? ... being a biology major I am quite interest in this prospect and would like to begin my own hobby project of breeding peasant's that can be free ranged like chickens...and am wondering if anyone else out there has done something like this or would be interested in doing it with me...so to speak

....I have a plan and thought I would share it and get your opinions first, however

1.) selecting stock...I would want to begin with pheasant eggs from the most friendliest of birds that will come to their owners hand for food, it would be good if both mom and dad had this trait ... if I could find stock from anyone who already has some pheasants that ARE successfully free ranging then that would be wonderful!!!

2.)discovering the best mother for our baby pheasants....a very calm, docile chicken would be best, but I hear that they dont bond well with them and dont seem to understand chicken...so this would be my first point of research and if anyone here could help out with it that would be great!

a.) can you get a baby pheasant to understand a mom chicken if you keep them in a confined space for a certain amount of time (how ling doe this time need to be...days, weeks, months?)
b.) would certain types of chicken be better suited as pheasants are very active and can fly perhaps a banie breed that is more active than a silkie and can fly like maybe a Dulcea or game banie
c.) Maybe a peacock, guinea or Turkey would be a better mother?


3.) Trial and Error stage... Now all we need is time and luck and few predation problems and if we continue to keep only the eggs from the most docile and human friendly of the flock we should slowly be able to see a difference in the offspring...after 4-5 generations maybe more maybe less and then once we have a nice pair producing friendly offspring, we begin to try to free range the babies and hopefully some will come back to us for feeding and still use the coop at night and from these we will keep eggs and so forth and so on to eventually have pheasants that CAN be kept as free rang pets

Ok...now I would love to hear your thoughts bad or good...If I go through with this project it will begin in the spring so I want to get a jump on it this year with advice on here

Thank YOU

 

[annabell254]

My apologies for the misspell in the title of the article!!!! I don't know what I was thinking!

 

[adriano]

My guess would be that you would have to handle them everyday from when hatched, feeding from your hand etc
I have handfed a few and they became very tame silvers, reeves and monals .
I have never free ranged anything.
I have heard of people mention about silvers been out and about.
But i would suspect you would have to get them used to your dogs or cats or kids anything that could frighten them, the ones that eat from my hand now always are silvers and reeves.

 

[deserthotwings]

Hate to discourage you, but all pheasants are by nature "wild birds" their natural instint when frightened is "flight". I'm sure being a bio major you know its not possible to breed the natural instint out of a wild animal. It doesn't even work in zoo's. I've raised pheasants for over 20 years and currently have more than 200. Some of them are reasonably "tame", but if released it's bye, bye birdy. Like Tony says "You can free range them once and once only." Even if your experiment did work, and I sure wish you the best of luck with it, I would be wondering how you would deal with the predature issue. I have enough problems with predatures with my birds in flight pens. Don't think they would last long on the run.

 

[jak2002003]

I would say it very possible indeed. I have free range many birds that everyone says you can not have. Here is the list:

Ringneck Doves,
Diamond Doves,
Zebra Finches,
Budgies,

Also have golden pheasants and ducks that free range.

I let all these birds out in the morning and when I rattle a tin of feed and call them they come back.

The smaller birds are let out, but will not come back when I call them. Instead they return when they are hungry....several hours later, or more rarely, the next morning. I have made small 'traps' on the cage doors so they can go back in, but not back out again.

If you take time to get them used to the area and landmarks, and they know how to get back into the cage or coop, and where the food is.....then most birds will return. I even had canary and Gouldian finch escape their aviary and they came back on their own.

 

[annabell254]

I completely agree...I have been studying this and a new study just came out in Canada about scientist studying foxes and trying to breed the wild out...after only 3 generations the foxes all come running...another interesting development is that there appearance changed and the more docile foxes took on the appearance of small dogs with tabby ears and less angular faces in the 4th generation!!!! and there was no cross breeding only wild fox to wild fox and then only keeping the most tame offspring (they are still studying this phenomenon to find out its importance) ... Wildness can and has been bred out of animals for quite a long time...it just takes time ...and dedication it is simply selective breeding but selecting for personality traits rather than color or style...I raise Champion European Great Danes and temperament and excitability is an inheritable trait as is almost every trait in every animal...as all of my dogs are inside companions temperament is very important...Also because of them, I have little to no predation issues...they come and go as they please through doggy doors and are trained to love the poultry and nothing wants to mess with a Dane! I have banies raising chicks free range in the yard and do not even have issues with this ducks and geese at the pond and silkies and chickens in the yard

 

[annabell254]

Jak...do you sell eggs? I would love to start my project from a flock already free ranging! I was wanting Golden's and lady Amherst's...Ive heard good things about both and love their colors...and I have seen cross breeds and they are also gorgeous...and you get some very interesting traits in very genetically different crosses, or mutts, in looks and personality...and am considering this path as well....as all I am looking to produce are friendly, beautiful, pheasants that can be managed like chickens...appearance traits such as size, build and color can be improved upon after we get a tamer temperament

 

[jak2002003]

Sorry I can not sell any eggs as I live in Thailand and so can not transport them so far.


I should mention that you can not keep them the same a chickens because they are not flock birds and don't stick together in a group once they are adult. The males will also fight with each other badly and will chase other males away until only one is left. I only have 1 male golden, so this is not a problem for me.

When you get yours the key thing to motivate them is food! only give them the food in the run and only at set times in the day. Keep them hungry and rattle the food container and call them each time you feed them. They get conditioned to come to that sound. Then once back in the run you can shut them in and allow them to eat as much as they like.

It does not make any difference if they are tame or not ......so long as they are not wild and scared to death of people. In fact I like most of my birds to not be hand tame.....otherwise they might fly to other people who may take them.

 

[pheasantfrenzie]

Hey There, I have read your post and thought It was rather interesting. It is possible to free range to some point because I do it all the time with all my ornamentals and some ringnecks. Although I do have a 8 ft fence around my 2 1/2 acres but that was more for the deer becuase they also kept coming on our porch wanting to be with my dogs and leaving there little surprises on my porch so I had to end that because the dogs thought it was great because they got little treats YUK!!! but I have found it also works great for my pheasants. I do open my kennels in the morning for one breed at a time so they can all get there grasses and bugs that they want and after being out for a couple of hrs I will walk to the kennels and shake my container of peanuts and they will normally come back and if they are stubburn they love to perch on my dogs so I will tell my dogs to get them and they will normally follow my dogs back to my kennels but sometimes they really think they want to stay out with my next birds to go out because they think they like one of the females but as soon as the male from that breed sees them and heads toward them they will normally run to there kennels to avoid the fight but there have been times when both males stand their ground and I have had to catch the one that is suppose to be in the kennel.
**I do have to add that my birds didn't start out like this and that I have VERY VERY patient neighbors that have called me many times telling me my pheasants are in their yards with their chickens and to come get them, oops.

Ok so I have explained what SOME of my birds do I will have to say that NOT ALL MY PHEASANTS CAN DO THIS and the ones that I can let out has been a long process. So this may sound really crazy but I have found this works very well for me and may not work for you but I HOPE it does. But anyway once I collect my eggs and candle them and can tell they are fertile I start to talk to them and you can notice when you do do that they will start to move in the shell. Then once they are starting to hatch I continue to talk to them until they are hatched and leave them alone until the next day because they are in the hatcher and it is somewhat loud because of the fans. Once I take them from my hatcher I transfer them to the brooder and offer them water and then food from my hand for the first day with little piles so they get used to having hands around them and know that I will be the one taking care of them. During all of this I do pick all of them up and rub under there chin and they normally fall asleep.MANY MANY TIMES IN THE DAY normally becaue they are so darn cute but This spring it takes much longer because I have over 100 chicks that I hatched and I will not leave 1 behind!! But by the end of the week the birds are so used to my hands and voice that they normally come running to the brooder to wait for me. I do sit on the floor and let them start to perch on me or my dogs but I will only pick up the ones that want to be picked up and I NEVER chase the ones that don't because then you are only reinforcing there wild side which means running or flying away. You will always have a couple that will still linger away and sometimes there are a couple that do just run but for the most part they do calm down to a certain part. I can tell the difference between the chicks from which I bought the Adult birds then from the ones that I raised myself which I find rather facinating. So you can get calmer birds with different genes for sure.

The reason I take all this time is I think it is important for them to get used to human intereaction not only for me to own them but for the future owners of some of the chicks I will sell.
Well I hope this helps you a little and didn't put you to sleep but I do think it can work to some point
Good Luck, Patty

 

[annabell254]

That makes complete sense ... I play classical music for my foals and puppies and there has been alot of studies on verbal stemulation in pre-natal brain development how many do you keep in your flocks? and just one male? which types do you think best suited for free ranging? and do you sell your eggs?

I have no problem go to great lengths for my babies...although you are right that sometimes it CAN take alot more time than first anticipated! but it is also such a joy