Feeding spoiled pheasant?

[fancyfowl4ever]

Hi Everyone,

got by accident a red golden pheasant hen 4 days ago. My neighbour called telling me their friends that live right in the middle of town, had a pheasant follow their car into their garage..... and let their little kids pick it up and carry around(I know doesn't really sound like a pheasant, right?). She wondered if they could bring me the bird since they can't keep it. I said sure.
Long story short an hour later the family brought me this spoiled rotten pet red golden hen! She feels quite at home in a small crate in the house(my quarantine zone), doesn't mind being handled and eats all kinds of junk but not any of the proper feed.
She seriously turns her nose up at the gamebird feed I feed to all my pheasants, then I thought maybe she is use to chicken scratch(whole grains) but she wont eat those either..... so she is on day 2 of no treats and only GB pellets and scratch offered to her and she wont touch it.

I wonder what her past owners fed her, she doesn't seem familiar with what passes as "feed". She sees me walk thru my house with a plate in hand she gets all excited calling me and bobbing her head.
She will eat any sort of people food and fruits, veggies etc that I offer by hand, mealworms as well, so I thought if I handfeed her the GB feed she might eat it... no go, or serve it on a plate.... no go too....

Any Ideas how to make proper feed appealing to this spoiled little brat? I am running out of Ideas.

She seems very healthy, good weight, nice feathering, overall a nice example of the species. No Idea where she came from tho, to my knowledge there are no keepers/breeders in my local area and as tame as she is I am guessing indoor pet.

 

[chrishel]

How about if you mix people food with gamebird feed about 90% to 10% and slowly change the ratio everyday until it's all gamebird? That's how we are supposed to change over our cage birds (budgies) from see to pellets. I've never been successful with doing it for my budgies, but that's what the vet says. Usually I give up and the budgies hold out long enough to make me feel bad.

Another thought is to let her see other pheasants eating the gamebird feed. But that kind of ruins the whole quarantine thing. Youtube videos? (Just kidding, kind of...)

I would suggest that the people who found her put of signs that they found her. Based on her eating habits, someone out there is probably really heartbroken that she's lost and would be happy to know she's found and doing OK.

 

[fancyfowl4ever]

I use to raise lovebirds and that slowly changing over never worked for me either..... they would just make a mess and I am buying double the food for half to end up on the floor.

Right now miss priss is doing the same, she digs thru the pellets until she finds a chunk of apple, bread, chip, or whatever i mix into her pellets. I broke down and fed her 3 mealworms this am cause she was squealing at me, bobbing her head and flicking her tail and was very upset when i was feeding my quail with them and didn't give her any.... I'm such a push-over.

Today I will try scrambled eggs and garnish them with gb pellets.

I was thinking of putting one of my cortunix with her(under supervision) to show her pellets are good, the quail boogers are so animated about their feed all the time

but I am not sure how she would react to such a little invader in her space. I know the cat doesn't phase her but she probably never seen any quail before til she got here.

Putting another pheasant with her is out at the moment, I only have ringnecks and reeves at present and they are all bigger and much more agressive then a golden......

The people that found her are checking papers, pet stores etc for info and keeping eyes and ears open for the owner.

If I still have her by easter weekend I will buy her a male at the "odd and unusual" sale.

 

[destinduck]

I hate to say it but its "tough love" time. Feed her only the gamebird feed. Even though she doesnt like it she will eat it eventually.

 

[wpalmisano]

I never met the Pheasant yet that could pass on cracked corn. Maybe she is sick or injured ?

 

[fancyfowl4ever]

She is definitly not sick, she is one of the spunkiest pheasants I've ever met. No injuries I can tell either and I examined her from head to tail.

She doesn't give corn even a sideways glance, all my birds like corn too, cracked, rolled, whole -doesn't matter even my hysterical reeves cock will calm down enough to eat corn.

Her official name now is Ms Priss, she took a nice walk thru my house today while I cleaned her cage, stalked the cat a bit too. Commented on and inspected anything and everything before pulling on my pantleg for attention. She is cute..... I don't need no house pheasant!

Still just offering a bowl of gb feed to her, so far wont touch it. It just worries me a bit because last time I had picky eaters(a pair of wood ducks I bought from a breeder across the country) they wasted away because i can not get the type of specialty feed they were use to and they refused to eat anything else......
So 3-4 days without eating worries me a bit.

 

[Birch Run Farm]

Try wetting her pellets down to mush. Most of my birds prefer a wet mash if given the choice...

 

[Tony K T]

Maybe if you throw a few mealworms on top of the gb feed she may eat a piece by mistake.Are you talking pellets?Or crumble?I wouldn't feed any crumble to a full grown bird.
In N.H.,Tony.

 

[fancyfowl4ever]

I feed turkey developer pellets(thats the closest you get here in terms of GB feed) and oystershell to my gamebirds, in the winter I mix that with rolled oats, barley, molasses and corn.

Crumble I don't feed to anything, even tho my feedstore keeps trying to sell me layer crumble(i order pellets and they smuggle a bag or two of crumble in.... thinking I wouldn't notice)...... my birds just waste it digging thru it looking fo big pieces. Also its just too dusty, that can't be good for a birds respiratory system.

This morning Ms Priss had her whole feed dish dug out. Empty bowl and pellets everywhere. I hope she ate some, probably looking for the mealies and pieces of apple I snuck into the pellets.

I was thinking with scrambled eggs pellets would stick to that and she would have to eat some and get use to them that way. Maybe today I will try that. Am stuck at home with nothin better to do.

 

[Birch Run Farm]

So are you going to try wetted pellets with her or not?