althrey
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keeping pheasants for traininghi, thought it was about time i posted something other than hello,
today i had a possible moment of brilliant clarity??? it doesnt happen very often
what would be the the logistics of 'permenantly borrowing' a couple of pheasant poults, from the shoot i keeper for, in the for keeping then amongst the chickens at home for training purposes when it comes to pointing?
1. the chucks are housed in a stable for most of the day, when 'let out' for a wonder and scratch around would the pheasants dissappear as soon as sky is visable?
2. is it cruel to keep wild/un-domesticated (though obviously reared) birds in captive conditions such as above?
3. can their flight feathers be clipped?? would this affect there pointability training as they wouldnt flush? do they feathers grow back for a possible realease back in to the wild after basic training has finished.
4. would the visable and scentable presence of the birds in the yard make the dog accustomed to the scent and make them less exciting when out in the field.
i think thats about it, i realise i hav emade up some words through this rant but i think it gets my general idea across.
wether it is cretinous or not i shall leave to you.
A
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windem bang
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I don't know the answers to all of your questions but I don't think releasing a young dog onto wing clipped birds is a good idea. The dog is supposed to learn that frightened birds fly away. If you use wing clipped birds you may be teaching your dog not to point birds 'cos it can do something much better - it can catch them !!!!
Bill T.
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althrey
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yeah i'd thought about that, but could think of a way to word it in to the 'clipping point'
thanks
A
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BenB
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Last year I bought half a dozen caught up hens off the keeper to use them for pointing practice. He charged me three days dogging-in and a pint. 
After an exciting drive back to mine (if you do this put the birds in something - they tend to be a bit distracting.
i put them into a stable for 1 morning. I found some wire shopping baskets that had been carelessly left in a stacked pile outside of tesco  and basically placed a bird under each and worked Teasel up to each for a bit of pointing practice from different wind directions.
As soon as i pulled the string to flip the basket and release the birds - they flew off and that was the last i saw of them.
i don't think that clipping the wings is a good plan for the reasons Bill said.
You can tame pheasants and i don't think it would be cruel but the dog may get bored of the scent if it is seeing them everyday with the chickens which it knows to leave alone - maybe even taking away the buzz of the pheasant scent??? - the method i used above was fun and worked.
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Helen
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Nice idea Ben! We've got a couple of cock pheasants that visit the garden to eat the chicken food - you can have them if you want A LOL!
Agree with not clipping the wings. I think it might be a bit tooo tempting to peg one if it just sort of ran and tried to fly. I do like Ben's idea though!
How about Quail A or, pigeons?
Helen
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Mike
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A,
If you are going to end up with tame birds I strongly recommend using some sort of launcher or releaser. Bens method seems about spot on for pheasants.
I've used, quail,partridge and pheasants (bought 30 odd ex-layers last year, great for one offs!) and will be experimenting with pigeon this year. By far my favourites are the bob white quail, which do return to their home (the vast majority of my loses have been to local hawks  )
The tamer the birds become the higher the risk of the dog pegging. Something else to bear in mind is that kept birds will smell a LOT stronger than wild birds so I would think going for smaller birds would be a good idea.
What exactly are you trying to achieve? Are you planning on working on steadiness or is it mainly for pointing practice?
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althrey
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hi, thanks for the replys,
i'm wanting the birds for pointing practice, i will be able to take the pup with me when i'm feeding/ dogging in for steadiness.
with regards to the clipping, for some reason i had it im mind that they could still fly some short distance. though i shall discard that idea.
we used to keep quail, b ut that was a good few years ago. i wasnt sure on wether pointing on quail wouldn't be as affective for when we encountered pheasants. or does it 'sow the seeds' so when an introduction to pheasants came around it would be already trained to point on scent.
i like the shopping basket idea, that was another conundrum on how to get them to sit tight.
Ben you said they just disappeared upon freedom, was half dozen enough to start training or do all the pointing practice you required. or did you have somewhere to go (like i have the estate) to point on.
regards,
A
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josie
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Quail are much easier to keep than pheasant and get on much better together (I think?) and, being smaller, are easier to load into launchers/hide in baskets and carry out to the field. Everything Slate learnt on quail has translated to pheasant.
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BenB
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I am very lucky to have a lot of shooting permission acreage that holds a reasonable head of wild game - anything I release just adds to the stock.
It was really just a fun way of being able to gauge how far away from the bird the dog was before she started to indicate or point - helping me to understand the scent cones and how the dog reacts to different directions etc.
I used a lunge lead on the first two so that I could have a controlled point and flush and then use the lead to keep her steady.
Tips on speeding up the flush would be helpful.
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sako75
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| Quote: | | Tips on speeding up the flush would be helpful. |
Ben , I used to have the problem of my dog being rather laboured when going into flush , she would go in positively but too slow for my liking. I developed a technique of QUIETLY praising her on point and then suddenly giving the "get-in" command in a loud and excitable manor and physically rushing in along side her on the flush. All this seemed to work over time as she is now like a coiled spring when on point and really explodes onto the bird after the get-in command.
Not sure if this helps but it worked for me. 
Barry.
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BenB
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Certainly sounds more effective than booting her up the ass! I shall give it a try - many thanks
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