Flight Pens

It is a delicate balance to protect our pheasants and partridges in the outside pens where they live during the winter months before being sold.  Nets, 8-12 feet off the ground cover the 100 acres of pens where we house our birds.  The grounds inside the pens are developed with [...]

One of the biggest investments you make on a game bird farm is flight pens. If you are buying birds from MacFarlane farms, we've got a vested interest in you succeeding, so we're not shy about sharing our flight pen plans. Remember, the main purpose of the structure is to keep [...]

When you’re running the largest pheasant farm in the U.S., everybody wants a piece—including some of nature’s most wily predators. At MacFarlane Pheasants, raising pheasants also includes protecting them from unwanted visitors, and in our home in Janesville, Wisc., we’ve gotten to know all the local troublemakers. The below animals [...]

All game bird farms are unique. They all have a certain way of doing things to increase productivity that has worked for them, and our farm is not any different. We have over 100 acres of pens that are used to provide housing to the partridges and pheasants that are [...]

Yes, MacFarlane Pheasants uses huts to shelter our juvenile pheasants in the early part of the spring when they first go outside. But that’s a temporary solution. We intentionally nurture the growth of plants in the pens to provide cover and distraction for the birds. Why? Like that Marvin Gaye [...]

After three weeks in the “A” room and four weeks in the “B” room, the former MacFarlane Pheasant chicks are now juveniles and ready to be transferred to outdoor pens. There’s no gentle transition; the birds are loaded into crates and plopped into the outdoor pens. But before we do [...]

When you consider making outdoor pens for pheasants you have to think not only of the size and shape of the pen, nor only about the huts and food, but the ground the birds walk on is an important part of keeping them comfortable and the pens in good condition. [...]

We’ve talked recently about the huts we use to keep our birds outside as well as how we transition birds in the barns, so let’s talk about moving birds from the barns to the outdoors. Transitioning birds to be outside can be tricky due to the many factors that need [...]

Back in May we experienced an unprecedented event in my tenure here, a break-in to our flight pens. Something was getting into our pens and randomly killing young pheasants. The first two nights an average of 200 birds were killed. We scratched our heads trying to figure out what to [...]

This past December we experienced a blizzard that opened our eyes further, on the possible damage that a flight pen can experience. I feel obligated to pass along some tips that may help you “survive” a winter storm. Check forecasts daily. We knew this storm was coming days before it [...]

Transitioning pheasants from the brooder barn to the flight pen can be a difficult and frustrating experience. We have come up with a recipe, if you will, on how to properly transition pheasants to the flight pens. By following the recipe, the transition should be a smooth one. The first [...]

At six to seven weeks of age, pheasants are moved from the brooder barn into flight pens. They live in these flight pens until they are shipped, around twenty-two weeks of age. Understanding how to manage covered pens is essential in producing a quality pheasant. Establishing cover in the pen is [...]