banton hen for rearing pheasents

stevoman

was up in my friends yesterday and he has an incubater for pheasent eggs. they hatched and he has put the chicks in with a banton hen to rear them for a while before they are put into a smaller pen and eventually the larger pheasent pen. this week i intend to make my own small coup for a hen and get some eggs in the incubater for myself. has anyone any experience with this and any tips or advice they could offer.

mallards im gonna thank you in advance!

mallards

Well I have only have two experiences of it. One good one not so good.
The first, I just had a hen and some day olds. I put them in a old rabbit hutch with a run attached. You know the type, rectangular box with an entrance and a run of maybe four feet square. I put straw in the box with the hen and about a dozen day olds. Next morning all but three where dead. I enlisted the help of my Grandfather who told me the hen needed to be broody or clucking as he called it. The hen just kept moving every time the chicks wanted to shelter under her. But he said we can rescue the situation.

Firstly he made me bring the coup inside and we suspended a heat lamp above the run part of the hutch. He then told me to close the hen in overnight, in the box part, with the chicks so she would accept them. The hen never really took to them but we reared those 3 and a few more that we added to the clutch.

The second time I got hold of a broody hen. You can tell she is broody as she will try and peck you and get aggressive when you try and get your hand on her eggs while she sits on them. This made for half the battle. She was sitting in the hutch for a day or two under some infertile eggs. We then moved her out into the run part, closed the entrance to the box part and added the chicks. After a few minutes of the chicks cheeping the hen would cluck back. We then opened the entrance to the box and the rest of the work was done by the hen, no need for the lamp. And she would have pecked your eyes out if you went near her chicks. We eventually moved the whole brood, at 8 weeks old, including the hen to the release pen. Her chicks were as wild as the hills from the start!

We stopped the broody hens for rearing as buying in 8 week old poults for the release pen were a lot less hastle.

Hope this helps some.

Mallards.

Also my Grandfather tells me that Batams are better than your regular hen as thet are wilder, will roost higher up with the pheasants and go broody more often.

meathstevie

mallards wrote: »

Well I have only have two experiences of it. One good one not so good. The first I just had a hen and some day olds. I put them in a old rabbit hutch with run attached. You know the type, rectangular box with an entrance and a run of maybe four feet square. I put straw on the box and the hen and about a dozen day olds. Next morning all but three where dead. I enlisted the help of my Grandfather who told me the hen needed to be broody or clucking as he called it. The hen I had just kept moving every time the chicks wanted to shelter under her. But he said we can rescue the situation.

Firstly he made me bring the coup inside and we suspended a heat lamp above the run part of the hutch. He then told me to close the hen in overnight in the box part with the chicks so she would accept them. The hen never really took to them but we reared those 3 and a few more we added to the clutch.

The second time I got hold of a broody hen. You can tell she is broody as she will try and peck you and get agressive you try and get your hand on her eggs while she sits on them. This made for half the battle. She was sitting in the hutch for a day or two under some infertile eggs. We then moved her out into the run part closed the entrance to the box part and added the chicks. After a few minutes of the chicks cheeping the hen would cluck back. We then opened the entrance to the box and the rest of the work was done by the hen, no need for the lamp. And she would have pecked your eyes out if you went near her chicks. We eventually moved the whole brood including the hen to the release pen and her chicks were as wild as the hills from the start!

But we stopped the broody hens for rearing as 8 week old poult put into the release pen were a lot less hastle.

Hope this helps some.

Mallards.

Also my Grandfather tells me that Batams are better than your regular hen as thet are wilder, will roost higher up with the pheasants and go broody more often.

Mallards, you've just summarised what my old man told me half an hour ago. Him and his pals used to have bantams sitting on pheasant eggs years ago and the moment the chicks were a day or two old they threw the whole lot out in the fields, coop, feeder and the lot. After a few weeks the coops were collected and the feeders were being replenished until the start of the season. On the last shoot of the season as many bantams as possible were being harvested and believe me, I might have been only six or seven when I toddled along but those hens were wild as pheasants.

Over the years they've given up on rearing and stocking. Now they're strictly into habitat management ( the gunclub owns a couple of acres dotted over their area ), feeding and fanatic fox, ferile cat and corvid control. Having said that, their territory is massive ( about 15 townlands in the center of Belgium covering about 13500 hectare ) but they have about 200 guns as members and they do two walk up shoots of about 10 guns twice every weekend during the season.

Anyway, here's a link to their website. I'm afraid it hasn't a lot of info in it and it's in Dutch to make matters worse. http://www.wbe-land-van-aalst.be

stevoman

mallards wrote: »

Well I have only have two experiences of it. One good one not so good.
The first, I just had a hen and some day olds. I put them in a old rabbit hutch with a run attached. You know the type, rectangular box with an entrance and a run of maybe four feet square. I put straw in the box with the hen and about a dozen day olds. Next morning all but three where dead. I enlisted the help of my Grandfather who told me the hen needed to be broody or clucking as he called it. The hen just kept moving every time the chicks wanted to shelter under her. But he said we can rescue the situation.

Firstly he made me bring the coup inside and we suspended a heat lamp above the run part of the hutch. He then told me to close the hen in overnight, in the box part, with the chicks so she would accept them. The hen never really took to them but we reared those 3 and a few more that we added to the clutch.

The second time I got hold of a broody hen. You can tell she is broody as she will try and peck you and get aggressive when you try and get your hand on her eggs while she sits on them. This made for half the battle. She was sitting in the hutch for a day or two under some infertile eggs. We then moved her out into the run part, closed the entrance to the box part and added the chicks. After a few minutes of the chicks cheeping the hen would cluck back. We then opened the entrance to the box and the rest of the work was done by the hen, no need for the lamp. And she would have pecked your eyes out if you went near her chicks. We eventually moved the whole brood, at 8 weeks old, including the hen to the release pen. Her chicks were as wild as the hills from the start!

We stopped the broody hens for rearing as buying in 8 week old poults for the release pen were a lot less hastle.

Hope this helps some.

Mallards.

Also my Grandfather tells me that Batams are better than your regular hen as thet are wilder, will roost higher up with the pheasants and go broody more often.

Thanks a million for athe advice and insight mallards. I can see what you mean by a broody hen. What comes to mind to me is when my friend received his hen she was sitting on 3 golf balls so i guess this may suffice as far as making her broody goes. Im looking forward to working with the hen, watching my eggs come along and also watching the chicks come along also. I plan to realease the birds in the thick of the bog where i hope they might also become wild more easily. Also the bog is my favourite place to hunt, and great snipe country with a setting dog! ( i think im more excited about the snipe this year then the pheasents, they are plentful and once the dog is working im happy)

whitser

stevoman wrote: »

Thanks a million for athe advice and insight mallards. I can see what you mean by a broody hen. What comes to mind to me is when my friend received his hen she was sitting on 3 golf balls so i guess this may suffice as far as making her broody goes. Im looking forward to working with the hen, watching my eggs come along and also watching the chicks come along also. I plan to realease the birds in the thick of the bog where i hope they might also become wild more easily. Also the bog is my favourite place to hunt, and great snipe country with a setting dog! ( i think im more excited about the snipe this year then the pheasents, they are plentful and once the dog is working im happy)

be carefull releasing in bogs. they are a favorite place for renard to reside. i dont know fcuk all about rearing or releasing birds, but one place you'll always find fox is a bog, especially if theres not much coverts around.

stevoman

whitser wrote: »

be carefull releasing in bogs. they are a favorite place for renard to reside. i dont know fcuk all about rearing or releasing birds, but one place you'll always find fox is a bog, especially if theres not much coverts around.

ah, you learn something new everyday so you do. i wouold have never thought the bog was that bad for foxes as i thought wildlife would be harder for them to prey on on the bogs. cheers for the heads up whitser.

kowloon

A good broody is worth her weight in gold. More reliable than an incubator.
Good broodies can be rare though, depending on breed, and you can lose a lot of chicks to egg pecking and stamping.

whitser

stevoman wrote: »

ah, you learn something new everyday so you do. i wouold have never thought the bog was that bad for foxes as i thought wildlife would be harder for them to prey on on the bogs. cheers for the heads up whitser.

not so much that theres lots of prey more that they are generally a quite place to ly out in during the day. and if he happens across your roosters he'll be delighted.

stevoman

whitser wrote: »

not so much that theres lots of prey more that they are generally a quite place to ly out in during the day. and if he happens across your roosters he'll be delighted.

whats the hunt like with hounds on the bog or have you experienced it? im just interested to know.

whitser

i find they're the best places to get hunts. the bogs on my farms nearly always give you a chase. two spots in particular give me a hunt nearly every time i go. i had a great one one time i was up on the hill looking down on the hunt. the hounds couldnt see the fox,they were about 300 yards behind him. he got away too, he ran them in circles then disappered. sometimes fox can make your(mine anyway) hounds look amature. i love bogs.

stevoman

whitser wrote: »

i find they're the best places to get hunts. the bogs on my farms nearly always give you a chase. two spots in particular give me a hunt nearly every time i go. i had a great one one time i was up on the hill looking down on the hunt. the hounds couldnt see the fox,they were about 300 yards behind him. he got away too, he ran them in circles then disappered. sometimes fox can make your(mine anyway) hounds look amature. i love bogs.

the bog is definitly one of top places aswell. i was reared to shooting on it as we lived just down the road from the bord na mona power station, though its gone now and been replaced by commuter families. its a great place to see hares so it is and the odd bird is stirring and their as wild as you like. its the best place for a great days snipe shooting aswell, so its a setters paradise. It wasnt until i moved to new york for a couple of years that i realised how lucky us folks really are to have places like this in our back yards!

thehair

stevoman wrote: »

the bog is definitly one of top places aswell. i was reared to shooting on it as we lived just down the road from the bord na mona power station, though its gone now and been replaced by commuter families. its a great place to see hares so it is and the odd bird is stirring and their as wild as you like. its the best place for a great days snipe shooting aswell, so its a setters paradise. It wasnt until i moved to new york for a couple of years that i realised how lucky us folks really are to have places like this in our back yards!

aaa yes the bog is great for hunting and target shooting:cool: