My lovely yellow goldens.

[Zenmonkey]

Not yellow, but how is this for a ratty looking little pheasant?

 

[ChikaInu]

View attachment 4153530

Not yellow, but how is this for a ratty looking little pheasant?

It gets worse before it gets better! Here is mine today!

(and I can't believe you have yours eating pellets! Mine won't come for anything less than chopped nuts, blackberries, bananas or wax worms)

 

[Zenmonkey]

(and I can't believe you have yours eating pellets! Mine won't come for anything less than chopped nuts, blackberries, bananas or wax worms)

These are the first pheasants I've raised in... maybe 34 years? I raised them on crumble and pellets, and a lot of hands on from day old hatchlings.

Only after reading about your birds and what Sean does did I realize they might like other feeds.

Thus far they seem tentatively accepting of strawberries and lukewarm on bananas. Greens are OK, and to my great disappointment they seem not to care at all for black oil sunflower seeds.

This is sort of what I would expect from having raised rodents and other birds. If they're not exposed early on, it seems to be a slow road to adopting new foods.

But! They do seem to recognize me as a source of food at least, and willingly come to me, sometimes even with a full food dish. You'd think that if what's in my hand is better than what's on the food dish, they'd be willing to sample those black oil sunflower seeds, no? Peafowl and guineas are not hesitant on that at all.

 

[tlcmurphy]

It gets worse before it gets better! Here is mine today!

(and I can't believe you have yours eating pellets! Mine won't come for anything less than chopped nuts, blackberries, bananas or wax worms)
View attachment 4153569

You all, it looks like something chewed on your birds

 

[007Sean]

These are the first pheasants I've raised in... maybe 34 years? I raised them on crumble and pellets, and a lot of hands on from day old hatchlings.

Only after reading about your birds and what Sean does did I realize they might like other feeds.

Thus far they seem tentatively accepting of strawberries and lukewarm on bananas. Greens are OK, and to my great disappointment they seem not to care at all for black oil sunflower seeds.

This is sort of what I would expect from having raised rodents and other birds. If they're not exposed early on, it seems to be a slow road to adopting new foods.

But! They do seem to recognize me as a source of food at least, and willingly come to me, sometimes even with a full food dish. You'd think that if what's in my hand is better than what's on the food dish, they'd be willing to sample those black oil sunflower seeds, no? Peafowl and guineas are not hesitant on that at all.

Well, here's my Red Golden..... mine don't like BOSS either! White sunflower hearts are like cocaine to them!

These are the first pheasants I've raised in... maybe 34 years? I raised them on crumble and pellets, and a lot of hands on from day old hatchlings.

Only after reading about your birds and what Sean does did I realize they might like other feeds.

Thus far they seem tentatively accepting of strawberries and lukewarm on bananas. Greens are OK, and to my great disappointment they seem not to care at all for black oil sunflower seeds.

This is sort of what I would expect from having raised rodents and other birds. If they're not exposed early on, it seems to be a slow road to adopting new foods.

But! They do seem to recognize me as a source of food at least, and willingly come to me, sometimes even with a full food dish. You'd think that if what's in my hand is better than what's on the food dish, they'd be willing to sample those black oil sunflower seeds, no? Peafowl and guineas are not hesitant on that at all.

Listen to the background noise....it's why I don't raise guineas, anymore!

 

[Zenmonkey]

Thank you for that, Sean! I've got some sunflower hearts and I'll try it today! But if they start sniffing lines of sunflower hearts....I might get a little weirded out!

I've been thinking of switching over from guineas to muscovies. I missed a pair of white muscovies at auction last night. It'll make it harder to know when the mail arrives though!