What Do We Do in Flight Pens After a Weather Event?

The main purpose of flight pens is to keep our pheasants safe and keep predators out. Rain, snow, wind, and heat are weather events that affect the flight pens at MacFarlane Pheasants. We deal with these events in the following ways:

• In the spring and summer, after storms and rains, we need to check the farms first.
• We check them for anything that blew around, such as feeder lids, huts, and other equipment.
• We look around the pens for washouts. Washouts mean that our birds could get out of the flight pens and face predators, so we take care of those problems immediately.
• We go through and hook all the feeders, if necessary, to ensure the birds have access to feed.
• Once the birds are taken care of, we start picking up items that blew around during the storm. When it is very hot, and we hit a dry spell, we start irrigating the cover in our pens.
• In the winter, we have to prepare for the storms a little more. If there is a high chance of a snow accumulation event, we go through all of our pens and put down the prop poles, so the pens don’t collapse from the weight of the snow.
• The morning after a winter storm we check on our birds first. We make sure birds are not stuck under the net and that none have escaped from damaged netting.
• After taking care of immediate problems with our birds, we carefully examine the flight pens for damage.
• We begin by lifting poles, examining the netting and making repairs. We continue this process throughout our flight pens until all of our birds are safe and protected.