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Pheasant Security Is Job Number One

On October 3, 2014 in General by spope

To be clear, MacFarlane Pheasants is far from a gamebird prison. Actually, as America’s largest pheasant farm is more like an exclusive gamebird resort, and part of that resort’s amenities include ensuring our guests’ stay is safe and secure. That’s why we make sure nothing is amiss with regular and frequent security checks and farm checks.

Security checks happen around 8:30 at night, seven days a week. Three different employees, each alternating days, go by the pens and buildings, hand-checking to make sure doors are closed and locked and nothing is amiss. They’re also checking to make sure all the outside lights are lit. It’s a thorough process; each check takes around two hours despite the fact that the employees spend about half the time in the vehicles conducting additional visual assessments.

The main purpose of this is to ensure that no one breaks in. While it’s not an often occurrence, we’ve been in business for more than 80 years, and these type of unfortunate instances can happen from time to time. Security checks help protect our investment in expensive, specialized machinery that helps us raise pheasants better, which only helps protect our future. With a little bit of prevention we can help keep our birds and our equipment safe.

Farm checks serve a different purpose. They’re also conducted every day, but at a higher frequency. Once in the morning when we first start the day and then at the end of the workday we drive around every pen to make sure all the birds have food and water, and that there are no critters in pens. The purpose of a farm check is the overall health of our birds.
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As each one of our three farm managers checks his or her respective farm, he or she is looking at the feeders. How much feed is present? He or she is also looking at the water lines to ensure there’s a steady flow. We’re also keeping an eye out for the occasional hawk that can get it. (If we don’t get it out fast, it can be in there all day eating pheasant.) Finally, our farm managers are ensuring that the outside gates of the pens are secure and that there are no escaped birds in the middle lane between pens. Each check takes around an hour to an hour and a half.

The theory behind the security check and farm check is simple: we’re keeping a vigilant eye out for the figurative “bear” in the pen. What this means is that frequent checks help ensure that should a problem come up, it’s handled quickly and efficiently before it can turn into something much bigger. It’s something we’ve found that’s contributed to MacFarlane Pheasants’ success for the better part of a century.



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