Tail Length and Genetics

Years ago there was a wide variance in mature pheasant feathering quality between growers. It was common for some pheasant raisers to over-crowd their birds and therefore produce birds with broken, notched or missing tails. If a producer raised pheasants and they had full tails, that in and of itself was enough. Today, the standards in our industry are much higher.

On our farm we have heard from some of our customers that our birds don’t carry their tails “high enough”. According to what we hear, on our farm (because our soil is sandy and drains well) we don’t have problems with our birds dragging their tails, because we don’t have much mud in our pens. Furthermore, others that raise our birds from chicks they buy from us, often don’t have well drained soil in their pens, and when the birds tails drag on the ground – the tails get muddy and break off. We are actively looking into genetics available in the industry to find the attribute of carrying the tail higher (i.e. not dragging on the ground). We also plan on working to get an extra inch (or two) of tail length onto our cocks tails at maturity – and we have a plan on how to attain that goal. A third project we have started on involved working on getting our chicks to start better – i.e. a lower starve out rate from healthier chicks.

We believe that our industry is looking for higher quality and better genetics. We plan on providing what the industry is looking for! Read more about our latest genetic improvements at https://www.gamebirdexpert.com/index.php/building-a-better-gamebird-3/