Our Visit to a Chinese Pheasant Farm

Our March seminar was attended by two representatives from the Shanghai Hongyan Pheasant Farm. One of the two attendees, Miss Yuan then invited us to visit their farm in China. This past week my wife Dori and I flew to Shanghai and spent several days visiting Miss Yuan’s farm. Dori and I were also then able to spend two days visiting the city of Shanghai. Shanghai has a population of 22 million and has the largest number of skyscrapers in the world.

The Hongyan farm is located with 45 minutes of downtown Shanghai and is a cooperative with 68 locations. We were warmly welcomed at a reception held at the main breeding farm and hatchery. After some initial comments and introductions, we then visited several close by co-op farms. Notice the footgear and disposable uniforms utilized as a biosecurity precaution.

Pheasants are raised strictly for food (vs. being raised to be released and hunted). They breed their pheasants in at least three different systems. One of the systems housing both hens and a cock in a cage system is similar to what I’ve observed in the U.K.

I will be writing about our visit in upcoming blog posts discussing various aspects of what we toured and what we saw.