Brooders

Last Saturday, a tornado struck MacFarlane Pheasant Farm, causing significant damage and challenging our team. As farmers dedicated to the well-being of our animals and our community, we want to update you on the situation and our ongoing efforts to ensure the safety and care of our birds. Immediate Impact [...]

At MacFarlane Pheasant Farm, the arrival of each new season brings with it a fresh set of challenges and opportunities as we prepare our barns and pens for the incoming batches of pheasants. We're committed to keeping things safe, clean, and running smoothly. This post details our carefully crafted process [...]

Once our brooding season is complete, we still have work to do at MacFarlane Pheasants. This year’s major off-season projects were deep cleaning, maintenance, and organization. Brian Davis, our Brooder manager, explains our reasoning perfectly. “Deep cleaning adds integrity to our biosecurity plan and helps our equipment run properly.  Organization [...]

Since starting the Milton Farm, located in Milton, Wisconsin, we have had great success. Brett Hammon, our farm manager, has provided us with an update for January 2024! MacFarlane Pheasants has been blessed with employees who work hard, communicate well, and demonstrate the skills necessary to raise our beautiful pheasants. [...]

We use Grow Gel with our newborn chicks at MacFarlane Pheasants because it provides immediate hydration and nutrition. Grow Gel is a powder mixed with water to form a gel-like substance. It has a bright green color that attracts the chicks to the feed source. This gel mixture perfectly supplements new [...]

The pheasants and other game birds we raise are an important asset to our farm.  Virtually all of our expenses are related to their care and protection! Locking all our facilities and flight pens daily gives us peace of mind at the end of the day. Importance of Locking Gates [...]

We are in the process of making plans to expand our hatchery because the demand for day-old pheasant chicks is very high. Months before we place the eggs in the brooders, we find that MacFarlane Pheasants’ orders have surpassed the eggs we are hatching! So, we are discussing what our [...]

MacFarlane Pheasants Inc. grows most of its white meat pheasants on Wolff Farm in Belleville, WI (about 50 miles west of our Janesville, WI farms). Up until last March, the farm owner, Greg Wolff, raised the birds as a contract grower. We would bring day-old chicks from our hatchery in [...]

Let’s talk about our Research Department at MacFarlane Pheasants. Trudy DeRemer is the Research Manager at MacFarlane Pheasants. She started as the Assistant Brooder Manager in 2004. Trudy has worked in the Hatchery, Farm Management, and as a Flock Supervisor. She is currently the Interim Research Manager.  Because of her [...]

We are so excited about purchasing a new Kubota Skid Steer at MacFarlane Pheasants. Traver Weber, our maintenance manager, explored both used and new skid steers before deciding that a new one would be the best long-term investment. His decision to negotiate for a new skid steer involved meeting with [...]

The North American Gamebird Association (NAGA) Conference at Bally’s in Las Vegas, Nevada was a special treat for attendees. Last year’s event was cancelled because of the Covid Pandemic so everyone was excited to meet up with other gamebird producers and hunting preserve operators to network and learn all the [...]

  What does Milton Farm Manager, Lodewyk Davis, have to say about the success of the Milton Farm? He proudly attributes the success to excellent communication between himself and his four co-workers who are at the farm full time and his colleagues at the main farm. The Milton Farm crew [...]

Troy, Director of Production here at MacFarlanes, revealed some great news about egg collection at MacFarlane Pheasants’ facilities during the 2021 season. We collected 2.2 million eggs between January 25, 2021, and July 15, 2021, from the 17,600 breeders located at our Missouri sites and the 9,000 breeders that we kept [...]

At six to seven weeks of age, pheasants get moved from the brooder barn into flight pens. They will get raised in flight pens until they are mature, around 22 weeks of age. Properly managing the cover in flight pens is an essential step to producing a quality pheasant. Understanding [...]

We have been raising Hungarian Partridges since the 1990s, and they continue to be a popular choice for MacFarlane Pheasants' customers. We buy Hungarian Partridge eggs from France and hatch them in our hatchery. We generally raise about 50,000 of these beautiful birds each year at MacFarlane Pheasants. The Hungarian Partridge is [...]

Smart Barn Alarms are protecting our barns at MacFarlane Pheasants. Heidi Welch, the Brooder Crew Lead, can tell you all about why they are needed in the brooder barns and exactly how they work! Heidi says, “The temperature and water alarms are VERY important and I cannot stress that enough!” The [...]

We get asked about bedding for the birds in the brooder barn, as well as for the mature birds, before they go outside. For the brooder barn, where chicks stay for about three weeks, we recommend larger dried pine chips. We've found the chips are best, shavings are too small [...]

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 [...]

We kept you informed about our new Hen Barn as we built it, so now it is time to talk about what we are doing with that beautiful building. First of all, it has been renamed, “The Production Palace”. The Hen Barn staff was put in charge of naming the facility and [...]

Our job posting for a brooder crew worker lists the basic skills needed to work anywhere on our farm. A crew member needs to be: responsible, dependable, motivated, have organizational skills, common sense, acute attention to detail, have a valid driver’s license, and be able to lift 50 pounds or [...]