# Pheasant eggs



## NDhunter7 (Dec 28, 2006)

I had 6 pheasants in my pen this last fall. i had gotten them when they were chicks in the spring. when they were old enough the hens started laying eggs, each in its own nest area. There must have been around 100 eggs between the 4 hens. Not a single egg hatched. Why didnt they hatch? Was there too many pheasants in a certain area for them to take care of their eggs. it was a 15 by 7 pen. I released them on my farm later on and i have seen all but 1 this spring. i plan on doing this again in about a month or so. 
any ideas on how to get the eggs to hatch


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

A dumb question......any roosters in the pen with them?

Because you need a rooster to fertilize the eggs.


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## Ima870man (Oct 29, 2003)

You had four hens out of the six with the other two being roosters I presume. Maybe they were to young to breed the hens. Otherwise, I do not know what the problem might have been.

Ima870man


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## NDhunter7 (Dec 28, 2006)

yes two of the them were roosters. they were the same age as the hens, that being about 4 months so mabey they just wernt old enough. i saw them physically attempt to breed tho if that means any thing.


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## strand (Sep 29, 2004)

Were you collecting the eggs and incubating them or were they just randomly dropped eggs laying around the pen?

Oh and Chuck, fertilization takes place before the eggs come out...that's how and why the eggs develop. :thumb:


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## NDhunter7 (Dec 28, 2006)

We took half out of her nest. ( she wasnt just dropping them around she had a nest.) We incubated those ones, and left the rest for her. There were several nest. Some we didnt touch some we took all of them.


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## strand (Sep 29, 2004)

If your incubation apparatus is setup correctly and the critical temperatures are right then you should have no problem hatching the eggs. Can I ask why you are trying to hatch them instead of letting them nest naturally? Were your original birds wild birds?


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## NDhunter7 (Dec 28, 2006)

We ordered them from a pheasant farm which claims that they are wild pheasants but i donno being they were in pens and all. We got them when they were 2 days old, then raised them up to mature birds. We hoped they would lay eggs and we could release the older ones and raise the new ones. Once they didnt start hatching on there own, we took some and put them in our incubated cage. Then those didnt hatch either.

We want to do it again and release more out around are farm.


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

strand.....I know that...but the eggs first develop inside the hen.


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## strand (Sep 29, 2004)

Chuck Smith said:


> strand.....I know that...but the eggs first develop inside the hen.


Of course the eggs develop inside the hen, where else would they come from? oke:

The eggs actually start as follicles, or gametes if you will, which are then dropped into the oviduct when the copulation occurs, THEN the follicle is fertilized by the the sperm and bota-bing-bota-boom 24 hours later (longer in some birds) your poppin out eggs.

Where are you from ND7? I may be able to get some more resources via pm as well.

-Kendall


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## NDhunter7 (Dec 28, 2006)

I am from fargo, and do you mean resources on why they didnt hatch?


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

Did any of the hens actually sit on the nest? Takes about 21 days. I raised pheasants for years and NEVER had any hatch out with the pheasant hens setting on them. Other people have had a bit of success with a setting hen (chicken hen) but when they hatch out they usually die as the chicken hen loses interest and you need to put them in a brooder anyway. But it's rare to have a pheasant hen hatch out any in a pen. I know a lot of pheasant breeders and have never heard of it being done, although sooner or later you may find someone who got lucky. But the vast majority of pen raised birds are incubated in an incubator and raised in a brooder. 
If the eggs are fertile and you have the incubator set properly, the hatch rate is usually about 75 - 80%. Usually pretty easy as you never have to worry much about humidity like for waterfowl eggs. 
Were the eggs you were trying to hatch laid this spring? With the cold spring it's possible they froze the embryo as in my experience most of them are fertile. If so, try the eggs collected from now on. Pick them up and collect them - store them at cool temperatures not over a week or so. Batch them so they should hatch at weekly intervals and so no eggs are kept for more than a week before putting in the incubator. Sored much longer than that the fertility will drop a bit. 
I used to try releasing hens in the spring, but it has been shown pretty conclusively in research done widely that the successful nesting rate is extremely low, in the neighborhood of only 2 - 3 % and that survival of released pheasants is very low as well. From tagged pheasant studies, it seems that within a week or so, most are dead, some from predators, some simply just die - some don't seem to know how to feed themselves in the wild - without a feed trough they just die. As most researchers have concluded, the way to get the most 'bang for the buck' is to release them as close to the guns as possible. 
It's enlightening to hunt grounds after dog trials using pheasants. You'll find many dead pheasants, a lot of stupid ones that won't even fly that your dog will bring back, and a lot that are so stupid that you can drive down a trail and literally run them over - they don't seem to know how to fly away to avoid danger. A farmer friend of mine who has a lot of CRP and allowed us to have a dog trial said that for a week he was running them over with his tractor and pickups, and noticed them to be so dumb they would sit out in the open till a hawk or eagle or fox picked them off. A real field day for predators. 
I concluded that the best way to have pheasants around the place is to put the time and effort into habitat. "If you build it, they will come!" When we bought our acreage here 14 years ago it was nothing but an overgrazed pasture with not a blade of grass or bush for even a meadow lark to nest. After planing thousands of trees, native high grass, building three ponds (one with fish) and an active skunk/fox/feral cat removal program, I now look out the window (as I write this) and can see 57 pheasants (actually counted them) feeding on the overflow from our song bird feeders. We even had pheasants all over our deck all winter, most picking up the spillage from the redpolls, but believe it or not, some actually learning how to eat FROM THE BIRD FEEDERS themselves! Couldn't land of course, but they learned to hover and peck the seed from the feeder. Darndest thing! If we get good hatching and brooding conditions in May and June we will be overrun with those colored rodents! LOL
Thus my name "Habitat Hugger" Building habitat is another story. I tell everyone it's like they say about eating an elephant. You do it a bit at a time! A labor of love, though - a work in progress that never gets done.
Glad I ran across this thread - it reminds me I have to increase my tree supply to about 500 this year from the Towner nursery. I have 300 n order but have developed a neat little individual hand held tree planter which should make it easy enough to put in another couple hundred. 
Good luck with your hatching.


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

HH, can you post a picture of that tree planter please?


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

Sure can Dick. I'll figure out how to post a picture. I'm kind of computer illiterate but should be able to figure it out, 
Basically I started with a Honda 2000 watt generator which powers an ancient 1/2 inch drill. The drill makes a great power source to drive a small auger which I built from one of those fence anchors. I cut the loop off the anchor, then turned it down so it would fit in the drill. I had a piece of 5 inch flighting that I had picked up in a scrap yard somewhere, and the shaft of it was hollow so the shaft of the anchor fit right through. Then I welded it all together and changed the angle of the blade on the anchor a bit so it mated with the flighting. I cut the flighting back to about 3 inches with the torch. 
I bungee the generator on the back of the 4 wheeler and run a 25 foot extension cord to the drill and it drills right down to about a 2 foot depth, even in dried out packed native prairie. I planted about 300 trees with it last year, and the only problem was that the cutting part of the anchor was made of fairly soft steel so I kept an electric hand grinder on the back of the 4 wheeler to sharpen it up when it got dull. So this year I tempered it and case hardened it so hope it stays sharp longer.


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## NDhunter7 (Dec 28, 2006)

The pheasants i had seemed like they new what was going on. Every time a decent sized bird flew over the pheasants would run for close cover or duck down real low and lay flat in the grass. And we didnt make them real comfortable around humans hoping they wouldnt walk up to some one with a gun wearing orange later on in there life. They survived 1 fall and winter.


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## NDhunter7 (Dec 28, 2006)

I want to band these birds when i release them does any one know how i could make some or where i could buy some premade ones. I have some stamp letters and tried using a few types of metals to make previouse bands but they arnt flexible enough.


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