Pheasant.com Blog

News that Amazon will finalize the purchase of Whole Foods by the second half of 2017 is rampant on the internet. The articles consistently mention a deal for 13.7 billion dollars!  Whole Foods stores have been in business since 1980.  They opened with one store in Austin, Texas and now have 460 stores across the United States. Whole Foods has been selling MacFarlane pheasants for years and they are one of our biggest customers! This is why the future acquisition of Whole Foods, by Amazon, put us all on high alert! Read More »

Employers benefit from having bilingual employees on staff. Since October of 2016, Karina Rangel, who speaks both Spanish and English, has been working in our office at MacFarlane Pheasants. It is a real advantage in a business with customers from all over the world and many employees to have someone who can interpret for them. In a 2012 study by the National Institute of Health researchers found that people who grow up speaking two languages are also better at multi-tasking. We are indeed lucky to have Karina working here to support our Spanish speaking employees and customers. Read More »

Recently we have been interviewing our newest workers at MacFarlane Pheasants. They came to our farm all the way from South Africa! Johan Jacobs applied, through an agency in South Africa for an opportunity to work in the United States. MacFarlane Pheasants, Inc. was the first job that popped up and Johan jumped at the chance to work in America. Read More »

Wicus Jacobs is currently an employee at MacFarlane Pheasants Inc. He has only lived in America for a short time and will only live here 10 months. He came to our farm from Christiana North West, South Africa.  Read More »

A complicated application process in South Africa, at a company that helps South African people find work in the United States, brought Gerhardus Venter to MacFarlane Pheasants. He lives here with nine other men from various parts of South Africa, and will be here for 10 months. All of the men will return to their homeland on January 15, 2018. Read More »

Ronnie Viljoen was interested in working in America and he accomplished his goal when he was hired by MacFarlane Pheasants for a 10 month job on our farm. After lots of paperwork and working with the American Embassy to obtain a visa, he arrived in America all the way from the Great Karoo in Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. Read More »

We are very busy this time of year at MacFarlane Pheasants. Two of the big jobs we do in spring and summer are mowing and keeping the farm picked up. We do both of these jobs for aesthetics and some very important health and safety reasons. Keeping the farm picked up is, in fact, a year round chore, but much easier in the spring and summer when we don’t have to fight the weather. Pride in our farm is always a focus, but the health and safety of our game birds is a priority. Read More »

The Hen Barn has a manure gutter clean out shoot. I know that doesn’t sound all that exciting but if you have problems with your gutters, it can be an exciting mess that no-one enjoys cleaning up! The manure gutter chain runs through the barn to the outside where the manure is dropped into the manure spreader. When it works well, it is a good system for removing waste from the barn. Read More »

MacFarlane Pheasants, Inc. hatches over two million birds each year in our hatchery. That means we collect over three million eggs in order to get that many hatches! Obviously, we have our system down to a science. We use the Natureform I-14 machines to incubate our eggs. These machines must be calibrated to 99 degrees. In order to calibrate the machines to the required 99 degrees we use a mercury thermometer. Read More »

We do fun farm tours at MacFarlane Pheasants, Inc. because many people who hear about our pheasant farm are interested in seeing how wild birds are raised. We enjoy helping our guests learn about our pheasants and other game birds that live and grow on our farm. In days past, we allowed our guests to walk about, but increased biosecurity precautions have eliminated that part of a farm visit. Read More »