Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1912 — POULTRY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POULTRY

NEW INDUSTRY IN PHEASANTS

Interest Becoming Widespread and Thousands of Birds Now Scattered Throughout Country. (By W. L. M'ATEE.) / ’ < ' Conservation of the fauna including the game birds of the United States requires the strict enforcement ot laws intended to control the shooting and marketing of wild birds, and, necessarily limits both the. period during which they may be hinted and the number available to supply the increasing demands of those who desire those table, luxuries.

This lack may be remedied by the product of aviaries, preserves, and private parks, devoted to rearing of domesticated game, the marketing of which under suitable safeguards is already permitted in several of the states, indicating that American markets will open more and more ito these domesticated substitutes to the fast disappearing wild game. At present there is no lack of demand for pheasants for various purposes. Owners of private preserves, and state game officials, pay profitable prices for certain species for stocking their covers, zoological and city parks and owners of private aviaries are ready purchasers of the rarer and more beautiful species, and large I

numbers of dead pheasants are annually imported from Europe to be sold for several times the price they bring in European countries. The demand for pheasants is increasing. Ringneck pheasants have long been established in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, and are less common in the wild state in Massachusetts, New York, Indiana and Kansas. Efforts to acclimatize pheasants in the United States are of comparatively recent origin, though earlier than is popularly supposed. The few pheasant stomachs examined indicate that these birds are very fond of grain. Oats and wheat composed about 34 per cent, of the food of 12 ringneck pheasants collected in Oregon and Washington and 82.5 per cent, of the stomach contents of two English pheasants from British Columbia. But all of these birds were taken in September, October and December; lienee it is probable that all of this grain was waste. The next largest item of food in these stomachs was insects, consisting entirely of larvae of March flies. One stomach contained no fewer than 360 of these larvae and another 432. The remainder of the food Included acorns, pine seeds, browse, peas, rose hips, lupine, bur

clover, black mustard and chickweed.

From 200 to 960 kernels of wheat and oats were taken by various birds; about 200 peas were found in one stomach, but it was evident that these were the old and partly decomposed refuse of the harvest. Twenty-three acorns and 200 pine seeds were taken by the birds which ate the largest amount of mast, and about 800 capsules of chickweed, containing more than 8,000 seeds, were in the stomach of the best weed seed eater.

What is most evident is that pheas* ants are gross feeders; their capabilities for good or harm are great. If a number of them attack a crop they are likely to make short work of it, or if they devote themselves to weed seeds or insect pests they do a great deal of good. It seems therefore that the question of the economic value of pheasants is peculiarly a local one. Much depends on the proportion of land under cultivation, the kind of crops raised, and the quantity of wild food available. Apparently the chances are about even that imported pheasants will or will not become useful economic factors.

Ringneck Pheasant.