Basic HTML Version
My father was Donald James MacFarlane. He
was born on July 3, 1903 in the same farmhouse
his father (William Daniel MacFarlane) was
born in 30 years earlier. The farmhouse (it’s still
there) is located 10 miles east of Janesville, on
the farm where my great grandfather emigrated
to from Scotland in 1849.
My father went to elementary and high school in
Janesville, and he then went on to get his degree
in Chemical Engineering from the University of
Wisconsin. After college he moved to New
Jersey and worked for the Standard Oil
Company. Standard Oil transferred him to
Beaver, Pennsylvania – and that is where he met
my mother.
In 1928 one of my father’s younger brothers,
Kenneth MacFarlane attended the New York
Game Commission’s Game Bird School.
Kenneth imported pheasant eggs from an
English game farm called Gaybird Game Farm,
and in 1929 Kenneth called his new enterprise
the MacFarlane Pheasant Farm.
In 1934 my father developed a medical
condition related to his exposure to fumes from
the refinery he worked at, and he and my mother
decided to move to Janesville. My dad worked
side by side with his brother Kenneth running
the pheasant farm. In 1940 my uncle Kenneth
died from exposure while hunting ducks on the
Mississippi River. What has been called the
Armistice Day Blizzard resulted in the death of
my uncle, Kenneth, and many other hunters that
day. My father bought his brother’s share of the
farm from Kenneth’s widow Gwen.
My siblings were born as follows: Marion 1937,
Janet 1941, Marj 1943 and Kenneth 1945. In
1945 my parents took a trip to Montana. On the
drive home they passed through Duluth,
Minnesota. They ate at a roadside restaurant –
only to later find out that the cook at that
restaurant was contagious with polio. My father
contracted and nearly died from polio – he was
in an iron lung for a period of time. When he
recovered, he was a paraplegic for the rest of his
life (he used a wheelchair and could only walk
with braces and crutches). Can you imagine how
hard it was for my mother finding out that her
husband was deathly ill, having children that
were 8, 4, 2 and an infant, plus a farm to run?
After his recovery, my father ran the office end
of the business from then on, and my mother’s
brother James Adamson (with the assistance in
the hatchery of Jim’s wife Dot) ran the
production end of the farm. I believe one of the
reasons my father built such a successful day-
old chick business was because he was so
available to answer the phone (and talk to
people who were having problems or had
questions about their day old chicks). And my
uncle Jim was very good at raising and breeding
pheasants.
My father was very involved in our community
– he taught Sunday school, and he was elected
for many terms to the Rock County Board of
Supervisors. He was one of the earliest
proponents of Habitat for Humanity – when I
was a boy we traveled to Americas, Georgia
and met the founder of Habitat for Humanity
Millard Fuller. My dad also served a term as
President of the North American Gamebird
Association.
My dad bought the farm where we are currently
located in 1953. He told me he especially liked
this farm because the soil was so sandy – and
that sandy attribute has certainly contributed to
our success raising pheasants here. In the 60’s
my dad started lighting our breeder flocks (to
enable us to produce many more early season
chicks).
Over the years the farm has sold a number of
different breeds of pheasants – and my dad and
uncle directed genetic selection to improve the
breeds. Here are a few of the breeds that the
farm worked on in the 50’s and 60’s: Melanistic
Mutants, Jumbo Ringnecks, Old English
Blacknecks and Buffs. In the early 70’s my dad
sent both Jumbos and Whites to Texas A&M
University for the initial development of what is
now our White strain (meat pheasants).
My dad suffered a stroke in 1970 and had a
series of stokes in the following years. In 1978
a devastating fire destroyed the farm’s brooder
facility. In 1979 my dad and my uncle
persuaded me to return home from the
University of Houston-Texas. In 1980 my
Uncle Jim and my Aunt Dot retired and moved
to Colorado. With my uncle no longer here, my
dad gave me direction, input and assistance as
we ran the farm in the early 80’s. My dad
passed away on January 31, 1985.
My father was a pioneer of the gamebird
industry. He devoted his career to running our
pheasant farm. My dad was an inspiration to
many, and the foundation he and my uncle Jim
built was a major factor in our farm becoming
what it is today.
In 2002 MacFarlane Pheasants purchased two
John Deere Gators. The gators were used
extensively to move feeders in and out of pens
and spray weeds in pens. After eight years and
5000 hours on each machine, they have become
unreliable. This past spring when we were
setting up pens, both gators broke down, and
the pen crews got behind because of it. We
needed another utility vehicle and needed it fast
or were risking not being able to get pens set up
when needed.
When looking at all the new utility vehicles on
the market, only two fit our budget and pen
height requirement: the John Deere Gator TS
and the Kubota RTV 500. We chose the
Kubota because of the 4-wheel drive,
independent suspension, hydrostatic
transmission and fuel injection. The Gator has
none of these features. The Kubota also out
powers and has a much tighter turning radius.
The only two draw backs are the smaller cargo
bed and costly maintenance (filters and fluids).
The employees of MacFarlane Pheasants are
happy with the new Kubotas and have found
that they help tremendously in their day-to-day
work.
Kubota Meets our Needs
•
Ryan George -
My Father the Pioneer
•
Bill MacFarlane -
800.345.8348 • www.pheasant.com
3