Pheasants, anyone keep them?

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Tony

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I've just seen a couple of big fat Pheasants out the back of ours, my immediate thought is Umm, dinner, but the reality is that I can't be bothered so I just watched them for a minute or two and then wondered if anyone ever kept them as a pet or for breeding, ours are escapees from the local shoots, we've got a fair few about here that have survived over the years.

Any thoughts?
 
I think you are out of season now anyway as regards taking them for the pot.
I have kept and bred Lady Amherst, Silver, Reeves, and Golden Pheasant, I also used to pick up maybe 50 Melanistic mutants every year for rearing and selling on to other breeders/keepers. I switched over to Quail in the end as they were a lot less trouble and easier to keep a lot more in the same space. Much bigger variety of Quail too and really good for tidying up waste seed in the bottom of the aviaries that I kept the other birds in.
Another plus side from the Quail was/is the number of eggs they lay and the silly price the eggs sell for compared to the Chicken and Banty eggs.

D.B.
 
my brother is a game farmer and used to breed them. he also bred golden pheasants but i guess they werent for food?

we get them at the back of the house plus we had a pair of red legged partridge that me brother identified for me (i guessed grouse or mallard) that he says have escaped after being released from a shoot.
 
We don't really keep them but we get 50 every couple of years and release them as I am a hunter I like to keep the stock up. One year quail and the other pheasant.
 
I seemed to have acquired one as a pet .........

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Shame about them being bred for shoots in battery cages. Even the BASC seems to object to this.
 
Never had a Pheasant as a pet but we have one that has claimed our garden as his territory for the last few years. We call him Regency General, not sure why, but he seems a very opinionated pheasant and quite arrogant.
 
"Are ya feeding it Rob.. looks well fed"
Feed it raisins well soaked in whisky, when it falls over, roast it. Then use the feathers to tie flies and catch fish.
Ian Niall, country writer and thorn in the flesh of the establishment, found partridges so endearing he couldn't bear to harm one, but pheasants were a different matter: " a proud, arrogant bird - never spared one yet."
 
"Are ya feeding it Rob.. looks well fed"
Feed it raisins well soaked in whisky, when it falls over, roast it. Then use the feathers to tie flies and catch fish.
Ian Niall, country writer and thorn in the flesh of the establishment, found partridges so endearing he couldn't bear to harm one, but pheasants were a different matter: " a proud, arrogant bird - never spared one yet."
I'm with Ian Niall on that, they always get both barrels!

We get some in the garden after the chicken food, they do get quite tame.

There was a guy who tried to farm them indoors to fatten, importing heavy strains from the US. Unfortunately his project got wiped out by blizzards which crushed his rearing field.
Shame about them being bred for shoots in battery cages. Even the BASC seems to object to this.


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Tough as old boots at this stage of their lives, not good eating unless slow cooked. We have a couple that wander about the garden looking slightly bewildered, as they do. I've got them easily in the sights but just can't pull the trigger. Same goes for the ducks that sit on the roof, and the two pairs of Collared Doves that are bound for life and perform their mating rituals every year.

As said, Spring isn't shooting season.

Where I live is a huge pheasant shooting area. We have white, golden, black, and regular pheasants released, the majority being regular. The fancy ones score more points with the blustering, once a year, tweed cladded, pompous, disdainful visitors, who bring their office buddies. And not many of them actually hit the bird properly, and their token Labrador hasn't been properly trained to fetch the birds. My dogs are always eating or rolling in pheasant remains, or chewing up wounded birds.

Not to mention two broken windscreens on my car, and a swerve that nearly put me in the woods.

That said, I like the big old boy who struts round the garden. He gets porridge oats chucked out for him and drives my dogs to such distraction it's painful on my ear. :)

But no, not as a pet. They're suitably silly (like chickens) to keep as pets, but I've not heard of them as pets. I think you should get some Peacocks ;)
 
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"the blustering, once a year, tweed cladded, pompous, disdainful visitors, who bring their office buddies. And not many of them actually hit the bird properly"
:lmao:
"and their token Labrador hasn't been properly trained to fetch the birds. My dogs are always eating or rolling in pheasant remains, or chewing up wounded birds."
:ban:
 
I've just seen a couple of big fat Pheasants out the back of ours, my immediate thought is Umm, dinner, but the reality is that I can't be bothered so I just watched them for a minute or two and then wondered if anyone ever kept them as a pet or for breeding, ours are escapees from the local shoots, we've got a fair few about here that have survived over the years.

Any thoughts?

Shoot them IN season!
:)
K
 

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