Pheasant.com Blog

Mowing and trimming our property at MacFarlane Pheasants adds to the beauty of our property, but it isn’t the only reason we need a great mower. We hire two people to mow 40 hours a week because when you are dealing with as much land as we have and have game birds to protect, it takes a great deal of time. We have bothersome pests that would like nothing more than to sneak into our pens and barns through tall grasses! Read More »

The gamebird industry is changing in significant ways due to the many risks that are involved in raising birds. The economy, weather and  the Avian Influenza outbreaks that have happened throughout the world In the past five years have impacted the gamebird industry in many ways. Gamebird producers have witnessed a change in both supply and demand for birds.  Bird producers who have thought about expanding their businesses have decided not to, or at least to think about that decision as the risk is greater. In previous years, people who are ordering hunting birds have been able to contact producers at the end of the season and buy them for $6 each, expecting producers to have overproduced. Now producers are taking orders in advance and only planning on raising the number of birds for which they have orders. Read More »

We announced in an earlier post that we sold the 175 acres that currently contain about 20% of our flight pens. We also have barns, offices, and a maintenance shop on this site that will be at a new location by December 31, 2023. We are happy to announce that the work is finished on the new pens. We recently completed the pen project and placed our first Huns in the new pens. We built 76 individual pens that are 80 by 150 feet each. By the middle of July 2023 we will have the rest of our new pens filled with MacFarlane’s fabulous pheasants! The success of this project required some hard work by some great people! Read More »

We started raising Red-Legged Partridges in 2009. Our owner Bill MacFarlane had a customer request for these partridges and that started the ball rolling. Since the Red-Legged Partridge has been raised at game farms in France and Italy for centuries, we began exploring how to import eggs. We started importing eggs from France and became the only commercial producer of Red-Legged Partridges in the United States. Read More »

While I don’t remember my first hunt, I’ve heard my grandparents tell the story a thousand times.One September morning, my grandpa took me to the back 40 acres to shoot a dove or two when I was six. As we walked up to the pond on the backside of his property, a morning dove was sitting in a tree. I took aim, pulled the trigger, and excitedly went to see if I could find it! Little did I know I had missed entirely, and my grandpa tried telling me, but I was convinced I had just harvested my first bird. And sure enough, I found a dead bird near the tree! I proudly walked back to my grandparent's house with bird in hand to show my grandma I had shot dinner. As the story goes, I showed the bird to Granny, and her eyes got huge because I was holding a bird that had been dead for at least a week or longer. Read More »

Raising breeder hens to produce the chicks and eggs that are an enormous part of our business is a process we have refined over many years. In the past, we raised most of our breeders outside, but currently we keep only 5% in outdoor pens. The rest of our breeders are kept inside year-round for various reasons. Read More »

Filament is the company that designed our Pheasant For Dinner Website, and they were recently recognized with a merit award for the design by the National Agri-Marketing Business Association (NAMA). Filament belongs toThe National Agri-Marketing Business Association (NAMA), the nation’s largest professional association for professionals in marketing and agribusiness. Filament, who designed our website, is a full-service strategic marketing agency for businesses within the agricultural industry. They focus on strategy, advertising, creative design, production, branding, and reputation management. It was fun talking to Breinne Hendrickson, Marketing Manager at Filament, about the steps it took to design the Pheasant For Dinner Website for MacFarlane Pheasants. Here are just a few of the ideas for redesigning the website that Breinne shared. Read More »

Sarah Baker has spent the last ten years working at MacFarlane Pheasants. She started out raising Hungarian and French Red-Legged Partridges and later moved to the Dressed Pheasant Department. Before Sarah’s recent promotion, her title was Mature Sales Coordinator. Sarah will continue to be the Mature Sales Coordinator, but since her promotion to Head Sales Manager, she will now oversee account managers handling day-old chicks and eggs, pet food, and dressed pheasants. MacFarlane Pheasants is delighted to announce this and wishes Sarah all the best as she expands her role. Sarah Pope, Vice President of Operations at MacFarlane Pheasants, shared Sarah Baker’s promotion like this: "Sarah has been with the company ten years and has experience in both production and operations. Her dedication to MacFarlane Pheasants, problem-solving skills, and outstanding customer service are just a few reasons she was promoted to Head Sales Manager. Sarah is a valuable asset to the company, and I am proud to have her on our team." Read More »