Reeves- A Visitor

[Andy49]

Originally I wrote this post in the introduction section of the forum. I was advised to post here a for a better response. So here it goes.

Hi everyone, We are happy that we found this forum. We have a visitor. A Reeves pheasant. He just showed up one day in late September and he is staying put. He is not caged. He stays in our backyard and drinks out of the pool. We do feed him several times a day. If we are late with his feed, he shows up at the back door and hangs around till we get up and feed him. We feed him in the morning, afternoon and evening. I am semi-retired and working from home part time. We feed him large parrot food and he seems to like it (we have a 29 year old Amazon parrot). We bought a 50 lb bag of wild game bird feed but he does not like it. We have lots of questions. Some of them are listed below.
1. How long can we expect him to stick around.
2. How could he have ended up in our back yard.
3. He does not like apple, spinach or bok choy, but he likes to eat our oregano leaf from our plant. Any other foods we can try.
I am sure we will have many more questions later.

 

[Redgolden1]

Hello Andy49 he would love some starter grower chicken feed it has around 20 percent protein but he is not a wild bird and not native to the area he should be caught and sent to someone who has them before something gets him please send pics where are you from ?

 

[Andy49]

We did enough research on Google. The chicken feed is not good for him. I am attaching some pics. We are in Houston area. As far as we know, nothing will get him because he is in fenced area. We did call some agencies and no one is interested. We absolutely do not want to him to end up on someone's plate or gun barrel.

 

[Redgolden1]

Great pics Andy45 nice looking bird ! I am interested in what you found on Google about the starter grower being bad for them I have 77 pheasants 10 different breeds and all of them eat it and love it and on the back of the bag it recommends it for pheasants so I would be very interested to know why it is bad for them ? I will go on google today and see what I can find

 

[Redgolden1]

Hello again as far as fence goes if the holes in the fence are bigger than 1 inch weasels will get in and if there's no fence over the top a hawk or it's equal will swoop down and have breakfast ! There are plenty of breeders that would take him myself included

 

[Andy49]

You may be right about the predators. About a month ago, we saw some feathers including a long tail feather. Something must have tried to grab him. It has not happened since. The neighborhood cats used to visit the backyard to aggravate our indoor kitty. Now, they come visit in the front only.

 

[Redgolden1]

We have coyotes red fox grey fox fisher cats weasels raccoons possums and all kinds of hawks that would love to have some pheasant ! The food I use is dumor it is from tractor supply it is about 17 bucks for 50 lbs and is recommended for pheasants they have charts on the back of the bag I also feed them grapes apples and cracked corn good luck with him he is a nice looking bird he must have escaped from a local breeder he does look a little thinner than mine but we have very cold temps here now so mine are prob fluffed up! Will he feed from your hand ?

 

[deserthotwings]

Beautiful looking bird you have there Andy. Sounds like he is doing pretty good on his own, too bad we have to deal with the predators. Like Redgolden1 said, there are just too many of the varmits to take a chance on loosing such a beautiful guy. If you wanted to keep him my advise would be to build your self a small pen (about 8' x 6') no less. All it takes is a little hardware cloth and a couple 2 x 4's. With an open bottom. DO NOT TRY TO CATCH OR TRAP HIM DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS. If he spooks and flys away you will probably never see him again and something will probably end up getting him. Pheasants are almost helpless at night, if you can find where he is roosting you can more than likely just walk up and grab him, but using a net is a whole lot better. Also on the feed deal, all game birds require a diet of at least 20% protein. Most chicken feed is about 16 at the best, but like Redgolden says the chick starter my be a little higher. They are crazy about peanuts (but they must be unsalted and shelled) salt will kill a bird so be sure and use unsalted. Sounds like you have an interesting little visitor. Hope you will keep us updated. Good Luck Amigo.

 

[Andy49]

Tanks you kindly to all for suggestions and help. We used to have more wildlife in our area, but that has dwindled over the years. It is nice to having him around. After he is done feeding, the squirrels come and after that its the birds. This cycle repeats throughout the day. He perches on back of a chair at night. One of these days, he will need to be confined for a few days because we are planning to have a new fence installed. The fifty pound bag of feed I bought will have to be replaced as you suggested and I will get a different kind. He does not eat out my hand but comes pretty close. I am also thinking about buying mealworms (live or dried?). So far, he does not like greens (spinach, romaine, bok choy) or fruits (black berry, persimmon, melon). We will try some other things. Since Jimmy's (named after the late country singer Jim Reeves) ancestors are from China, I am assuming he can tolerate cold weather.I have seen some funny videos of these birds on YouTube chasing cars and bicycles.

 

[Redgolden1]

Sweet keep us updated