The Tanner Family Pheasant Project
Posted by JT on June 21, 2009
Just after hatching, our chicks in Rubbermaid bin
The kids and I have been doing a little pheasant project the last couple months. We have a small GQF Hovabator incubator and bought some pheasant eggs to hatch. Memorial day weekend, we hatched 37 chicks. We’ve since lost 2, so we’re sitting at 35 chicks now that just turned 4 weeks old. There is some land not far from here where we plan to release them and see if they can’t survive – at least till hunting season 
We typically hatch something each year. When we lived in Texas – and even Utah, it was quail. We can fit many more quail eggs in the incubator than pheasant eggs, and it was more fun having more birds around.
But the rules in Montana are different, and according to the Fish & Wildlife department, we can’t release quail here (they wouldn’t survive the winters here anyway). But there are no problems with releasing pheasants, so our bird of choice this year was a no brainer. I think we’ll try Chukars next though – as they are legal to release in MT as well, and I’ve never tried hatching them before. Let me know if you have any good Chukar egg sources.
One problem has come up though. On a recent walk on the land where we plan to release the birds, we saw a family of foxes. Mom, dad and several kits. My thoughts now are that our birds would last maybe a week – and would be quite the delicacy for the fox family. Usually, a little predator control would solve the problem, but I don’t think my kids would let me back in the house if I exterminated a few cute little foxes. So, I’m currently looking for a new home. Fact is, I’m sure there would be predators on any piece of land I could release the birds on. It’s just that I’ve seen these foxes and know that they’re there. Maybe I’ll just keep these birds in the backyard and use them for dog training. At least then I get to eat them instead of our local fox family 
