Our August 8th hatch ringnecks are now 12 weeks old and the crew is moving them out of the barn into the pens tomorrow. Each year getting the last birds out to the pens is a milestone for us. For us to efficiently run our operation, we need to “second use” a good percentage of our pens. Second use refers to using a particular outdoor covered pheasant pen two times in one season. We can second use pens by placing March or April hatch birds into pens at 6 or 7 weeks of age, then selling those birds @ 22 weeks (in August or September) and then placing late hatch birds (late June, July or August hatches) into those same pens.
We’ve had particular success with this method when we use a pen for the 1st fill for raising “no spec” birds as when we raise birds without peepers (or specs) we run them @ 60 sq. ft. per bird. Such low density results in the pen cover remaining excellent meaning that we can much more readily use that “no spec” pen for a 2nd use without unduly stressing the second fill of birds.
There are a lot of other details we’ve had to work out, e.g. how to hold birds in a barn til 12 weeks old, etc. We would be glad to share our protocols – come to our seminar next March.
