Chicks

At MacFarlane Pheasant Farm, ensuring the safety and well-being of our pheasant chicks is our top priority, no matter the season. Shipping chicks during the colder months presents unique challenges, but with careful planning, we ensure that our chicks reach their destinations safe and sound. Committing to quality and safety, we guarantee [...]

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 [...]

Clear Cut Remodeling has constructed a 3000 square foot addition to our hatchery at MacFarlane Pheasants in Janesville, Wisconsin. The inside of our building was completed on February 20, 2024, and the installation of new machines has already begun! The demand for pheasant chicks is high.  The only way to [...]

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 [...]

Did you know our pheasant chicks are shipped the same day they hatch? We started our chick shipments on March 14, 2023, and continued through August 15, 2023. This season, we shipped 1,809,632 chicks! It was an outstanding chick season for us at MacFarlane Pheasants, and we expect 2024 to [...]

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 [...]

It is essential to order your chicks for spring and summer delivery soon to be sure that you get them for the 2022 season. Early ordering also makes it possible to get the specific breed and sex you want. We opened up online ordering in November 2021, and 900,000 chicks [...]

May is the busiest time during MacFarlane Pheasants’ chick season. Why, you might ask? Our customers are preparing for the fall season to either release birds into the wild or prepare for the upcoming hunting season. Chicks born in May reach full maturity in late August and September, making it [...]

Keagan Strange, MacFarlane’s Hatchery Manager, typically starts his day arriving at the hatchery between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. This gives him time to get organized for the day before other employees begin arriving between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. • On Monday-Wednesday, hatchery employees are filling orders. This includes packing [...]

At MacFarlane Pheasants we begin the sexing of pheasants when they are day-old chicks. The process doesn’t stop there, though. When they are ready to be moved to the outside pens at 6-8 weeks of age, they are sexed as they are moved onto special move-out trailers, to be delivered [...]

Chicks raised in the Hen Barn under the guidance of Research Manager, Kate Rollette, are raised as pedigree breeders for the white pheasants we produce for food consumption at MacFarlane Pheasants. The Hen Barn is a little different from other barns. Chicks are raised year-round with large hatches occurring once [...]

The number one trait buyers look for in a pen raised bird is performance like a bird naturally found in the wild. We have literally used a lifetime of experience to raise all of our pheasants with the attributes of a perfect wild pheasant. Our birds are uniform in size [...]

MacFarlane Pheasants, Inc. hatches over two million birds each year in our hatchery. That means we collect over three million eggs in order to get that many hatches! Obviously, we have our system down to a science. We use the Natureform I-14 machines to incubate our eggs. These machines must [...]

Our hatchery at MacFarlane Pheasants is where we incubate eggs and hatch our pheasant chicks. The most important part of incubating eggs is to provide heat, humidity, and ventilation. If you can provide those basic needs and follow some basic steps, 25 days later you will have some beautiful peeping [...]

Gro-gel is a super hydrating gel for newborn chicks. In addition to hydration, it is filled with nutrients and good bacteria. The Gro-gel we purchase comes in a powder and we add water to the amount we need and mix it until it is gel-like. Then, we place a heaping [...]

After the other night’s snow, I was reminded it’s not quite spring in Wisconsin! But we are preparing for our spring pheasant and partridge hatches ,because it is almost here!  Our first chicks will be available April 2017. We hatch 500,000 chicks a year so we need to prepare. We [...]

Pheasant peeping is typically done when chicks are 5 weeks of age. We want to keep them as healthy as possible and chicks tend to pick at each other. That sounds almost simplistic, but we are talking some serious picking here! They will pull out feathers and grab onto skin [...]

Feed and water are the life source for our game birds. Our system for making sure our pheasants and other game birds stay healthy, by receiving proper hydration and nutrition, has 6 main procedures: We check feed and water systems daily, and each time we enter a room or pen [...]

Maintaining your feed and water systems is critical to keeping your game birds healthy. Be prepared to spend time checking feed and water systems in all barns at least three times every day of the week. If there are problems with either of the systems that are not recognized in [...]

Monitoring of feed consumption is an essential component of making sure our birds stay healthy. One of the first signs of a sick bird is that they stop eating and drinking. This is why we are vigilant about checking our feed and water systems and our birds morning, noon, and [...]