Pheasant.com Blog

Please mark your calendar for March 3-6th, 2024, to attend the International Pheasant Management Seminar hosted by MacFarlane Pheasants in beautiful Wisconsin! This year’s event will take place in Beloit, Wisconsin, at the Ironworks Hotel. Accommodations for attendees are at the Ironworks Hotel or the Hotel Goodwin, located across the street from the Ironworks Hotel. Both locations are offered at a special rate of $129.00 per night for the seminar duration. Registration is $600 for attendees and includes all seminar workshops. Registration also includes Sunday dinner, and all lunches and dinners on Monday and Tuesday. To register online, please click our link or call us at 608-757-7881. We are also inviting vendors. Registration is $950, including a booth and Sunday dinner, all lunches, and dinners on Monday and Tuesday. Each additional person is $600. If you want to register as a vendor, please call Sarah Pope at 608-757-7881. Vendor spaces are limited, so please don’t wait to reserve your space! We are excited to offer an outstanding itinerary for this event. Registration begins at 3:00 on Sunday, March 3, 2024. We will take you by bus at 6:00 pm to the Prime Quarter Steak House, with dinner at 6:30 pm. Read More »

We have been busy reorganizing our buildings at MacFarlane Pheasants since the sale of property at what we called our "Main Farm." We plan to complete our moves by December 31, 2023. Our main office in Janesville, Wisconsin, has already moved to 1609 Center Avenue. Please send all office mail to that address. Our Oak Hill Farm in Janesville has 22 acres of flight pens that hold approximately 40,000 flight birds. Recently, we constructed pens west of Oak Hill that hold 65,000 mature pheasants and partridges! Our staff built these pens this summer to compensate for what we will lose on the original "Main Farm" site. We are currently in the process of building a break room at the Oak Hill site. The new break room is being built by remodeling an egg wash room. Work has commenced on this project, and we expect to have the space completed by the end of October 2023. Employee break rooms are an important part of any business. Providing an area in the workplace for team members is good for the staff, but it’s also beneficial for the company. Long-term productivity is often increased when the needs of employees are part of business planning. Employees are still using the break room on the "Main Farm" but will soon use the remodeled space at Oak Hill Farm. Read More »

A few weeks ago, we updated you about the 76 new flight pens we built on a new property we purchased. We are happy to say that our pens are currently full of our birds for the upcoming mature pheasant season. Hatchery Plans Ronnie Viljoen, our Hatchery Manager, reported that we have been planning for months to expand and modernize our hatchery with new technology because the demand for day-old chicks is very high. We have identified our new incubators. They are the Jamesway Platinum 3 Incubators. These incubators use intelligent software, conserve energy, increase efficiency in hatch rates, and are less labor intensive! We will be the first in the pheasant industry to use these incubators, and with the extra hatching space we are planning, we expect to raise 100’s of thousands more chicks. Our Chick and Egg Sales Manager, Tassia Gonzalez, shared more powerful news for our customers. We will open the chick ordering system sometime in October this year, a month earlier than usual! We expect to have all breeds available and do not expect to need a waiting list because of our new and improved hatchery! Read More »

The QR Code portrayed in this article, developed by our receptionist, Emily Richter, is a real game-changer. We are looking forward to showing you how to access our websites and social media sites to make purchases easily, find out about events, and sign up for events like our Bi-Annual International Pheasant Management Seminars. You can scan the code directly from this article, which allows you to open all of your choices for exploration in Chrome! Read More »

Our MacFarlane Pheasants’ Retail Store has been open since 1986 in our current location. After much thought and consideration, we decided not to continue our retail store. We sold the property where we are currently located and will move our office to our new property on September 1, 2023. Currently, our retail store is connected to our main office. Finding a retail location adjacent to our office proved challenging without moving too far from the main farm. In addition, the traffic throughout the year varies greatly, and we decided we could still provide the public with their favorite pheasant items and needs by designating a local pick-up spot. We are still working out the details, so if you want to stay informed about our plans, we urge you to sign up for our e-mail campaign at www.pheasantfordinner.com. 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 »

We are in the process of making plans to expand our hatchery because the demand for day-old pheasant chicks is very high. Months before we place the eggs in the brooders, we find that MacFarlane Pheasants’ orders have surpassed the eggs we are hatching! So, we are discussing what our hatchery would need to look like so we can increase production and modernize our facility at the same time. Our staff in Mo can raise more breeding hens, allowing us to fill the expanded hatchery with more eggs. We also intend to continue growing our dressed business, so we need space to hatch more white chicks. We hope to complete the expansion during the winter and spring of 2024. Read More »