Breeders

Raising Hens Effectively and Ethically Raising breeder hens to produce the chicks and eggs that are an enormous part of our business is a process we have refined over many years. In the past, we raised most of our breeders outside, but currently we keep only 5% in outdoor pens. [...]

Breeder Selection is an important aspect of raising pheasants. A good breeder selection program means that the health, appearance, and performance of the mature pheasants are superior. The number of breeders we select is based on the projected sales to our customers. Once the numbers are determined, we map out [...]

MacFarlane Pheasants has 18,000 breeder hens in Missouri. Troy Cisewski, our Production Manager, is responsible for overseeing the three sites we have there. They are all located within a 30-minute driving distance of each other. One of the main reasons we decided to use other sites so far away from [...]

Troy Cisewski, MacFarlane Pheasants’ Production Manager, takes extra precautions when the weather becomes extremely hot. The 90+ degree weather this past week has resulted in some changes to his crew’s daily activities. Breeder hens lose their interest in eating when it gets too hot and if they don’t eat and [...]

Pheasant mating is triggered by the longer spring days. The roosters’ pituitary glands become active at this time and the hormones produced cause the roosters to have the physiological desire to mate. At MacFarlane Pheasant Farms we have a select group of breeders, so of course we don’t want the pheasants we [...]

Ringneck Pedigree Pheasants are a unique population of birds we raise at MacFarlane Pheasants. They have the best combination of all pheasant traits. Their lineage is tracked and recorded as we continue to develop the best birds. Breeding pheasants that are hardy and healthy with long, beautiful tails is rewarding. Pedigree [...]

In the first half of the 20th century, commercial pheasant farms traditionally hatched the first chicks of the season in mid to late April. Starting around 1960, my father began lighting pheasant breeders to induce our hens to lay eggs earlier. The reason my dad began to light our hens [...]

The MacFarlane Pheasants, Inc. breeder crew will once again begin the huge task of sorting and selecting next year’s breeder flock. The size of this task is outweighed only by the importance that we place upon it. The crew will catch, weigh, and carefully inspect as many as forty thousand [...]