The Crowing Post:  10/15/07

October Pheasant Facts
by Ken Solomon

Pheasant chicks finally reach adult size and weight in October.  While the same size, they must consume more energy than their parents, because the chicks are still molting their feathers.  As the hunting season opens, most young roosters have replaced all their brown body feathers with the adult-colored feathers.  However, close examination of the chick's three outermost flight feathers (the long feathers on the wings) show that they are still growing (blue, blood filled shafts).  Remember that the adult rooster finished his molt last July, so in October his flight feathers are not growing.  This is one way of telling if you harvested a tender young bird or a tough old bird.  The length of the young rooster's outer three feathers can also tell you how old (in weeks) the bird is, when it hatched, and when incubation started.  State game agencies use a wing gauge to translate flight feather length into bird age. 

You can also determine if it is an adult or a young bird by examining the spur and bursa.  During the first half of the hunting season, look at the spur.  A young bird's spur will be blunt, short, dull colored, and as soft as your thumb nail.  The spur of a bird hatched a year from last spring will be sharply pointed, long, shiny black, and hard.

  Toward the end of the hunting season, you should use only the bursa, because at this time the spur may indicate an adult (greater then one year old) when actually it is a young bird.  Gently insert a feather shaft into the bursa ... a pouch off the upper wall of the cloaca (rectum).  If 1/3 inch or longer, the bird is young of the year.  As the bird ages, the bursa shortens.  So less then 1/3 inch indicates a bird hatched a year and a half ago.  The bursa is good for determining young birds through February.

How to Age Fall Pheasants:
Roosters can be roughly aged by looking at their spurs.  By fall, the spurs on a young bird are dull-covered, blunt, and usually between 1/4 and 3/8 inch long.  By contrast, spurs on an adult rooster are glossy black, sharp, and longer than 1/2 inch. 

 habitat today….pheasants forever!