Pheasant.com Blog

During the month of April,I wrote an article about practices for incubating and hatching eggs in our hatchery that was an overview of our practices at MacFarlane Pheasants. We hatch over two million chicks per year so our staff is quite knowledgeable about incubating eggs and hatching baby chicks! After that article was written, we published The Complete Guide to Incubation.  Our employees spent many hours preparing this document and I think you will be pleased with the results. The booklet is a free download and gives you detailed information about how to incubate wild bird eggs for a successful hatch. Read More »

We have been using the PLS-2400 MR4 PTC Light Dimmers from Precision Lighting out of Arkansas since 2015. Before we got these dimmers in our barns, we used residential dimmers and dimmed our lights manually, for the most part. Our newer system does the job with greater ease and effectiveness. Read More »

Beetles and bugs in the barns are not just yucky. They cause sanitary concerns, as well as affect the health of our birds. The Darkling Beetle, is a vector for salmonella, e-coli, Newcastle disease and other diseases and viruses. Flies are a big pain and are controlled with permethrin spray and traps. Read More »

“I have repaired just about everything on the farm at least once,” says Jay Illbeck about his work on our farm. He is the assistant maintenance manager at MacFarlane Pheasants and has been with us for six years. He has also delivered birds and helped with new construction projects, over the years. Jay is a self trained man who attributes his maintenance skills to being around other skilled people and extensive reading. He told me he loves the variety of his job.  Read More »

The story of egg production at MacFarlane Pheasants is truly phenomenal! I have separated the procedures into two methods to explain what we do to make sure we get the thousands of eggs we need to produce the chicks and mature pheasants that are the life blood of MacFarlane Pheasants. Read More »

Shayne has worked for MacFarlane Pheasants for 11 years. He was originally hired as an assistant manager in the flight pen operation, but he quickly moved into the management position and stayed for eight years. After that he worked in the hatchery for a season before becoming the manager of the food products building. He told us that he learned his management skills in college, but that his experience and on the job training provided most of the skills he needs to do his job.  Read More »

We let you know in February 2017 that construction had started on a new building on MacFarlane Pheasants. We are excited to report that our new hen barn construction has been completed. The electricians are working to complete their role in this project and cages that are a part of the facility have arrived in port from Germany. The benefit to this expansion is that by November of this year our dressed bird production will be significantly expanded. Read More »

Wing Banding is one of the many jobs done by our research crew. We wing band our pedigree birds to keep track of who their parents/grandparents are, weights, egg production and even the exact location of the bird. Identifying our pedigree birds is done so that we have a continuous cycle of producing the best pheasants. Read More »

The WI Livestock and Meat Council Inc. is a 58-year-old company located in Wisconsin. They established the WI Meat Industry Hall of Fame to recognize the contributions of individuals who have had a significant impact on the meat industry of Wisconsin. These contributions may be business ventures, ideas, processes, inventions, or any other effort that has positively influence the people and environment of Wisconsin. Don MacFarlane, who started his pheasant business in Janesville Wisconsin, was inducted posthumously into the Hall of Fame on May 4, 2017. His company lives on as MacFarlane Pheasants, Inc and has grown to be the largest Pheasant farm in North America, owned and operated by Don’s son, Bill MacFarlane.  Read More »

We are renting a new machine from UW Madison called the Aeromaster PT-120 Compost Turner. Now that is a mouthful of words! This new machine works strictly in an aerobic process. We can inoculate the decomposing material with many strains of bacteria to build up the humus crumb.  In other words, we expect our compost material to revert back to environmentally friendly dirt! Read More »