Hatchery

For years, we’d been dreaming about building a new hatchery but struggled to justify the cost, especially considering that the hatchery is only in use for half of the year. But after selling our main farm land and shifting away from the white bird and food products portion of [...]

Flight Pens A few weeks ago, we updated you about the 76 new flight pens we built on a new property we purchased. We are happy to say that our pens are currently full of our birds for the upcoming mature pheasant season. Hatchery Plans Ronnie Viljoen, our Hatchery Manager, [...]

MacFarlane Pheasants raises breeder hens in Missouri at three sites. Troy Cisewski, our Director of Production, is responsible for overseeing the three sites we have there. They are all located within a 30-minute driving distance of each other, and there are four production barns at each site. The Missouri breeder [...]

Moisture and temperature are the main issues that can slow down our hatches and affect our chick hatching. As we go into the winter season, the hatchery crew performs various tasks that keep weather-related issues to a minimum. As winter begins, the staff plans ahead when preparing for hatches. They [...]

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 [...]

One of the more exciting moments on our farm is when baby chicks begin to hatch. However, there are many steps to complete in the brooder barns before hatching begins, to prepare for the 500,000 chicks we hatch each year. Planning Ahead Set up a master schedule of when we [...]

The fact that egg production begins in spring is not a coincidence. This instinctive process is in response to the longer daylight hours. As a farm that hatches more than 1.5 million chicks, we have put an enormous amount of time and energy into finding successful ways to increase egg production. [...]

By Ron Willmore Natural Resources Site Manager INTRODUCTION The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) owns and operates the James C. Helfrich Wildlife Propagation Center (WPC) in central Illinois near Lincoln Illinois.  The facility, which is the only pheasant hatchery operated by the State of Illinois, was constructed in the late [...]