Brian Hemsley, of Clyde holds a Melanistic cock pheasant.
Otago Game Services' Brian Hemsley, of Clyde, and Jeremy Wales, who owns a 2832ha block on the Knobbies Range at Roxburgh, intend to open the Rough Ridge Game Preserve in May next year.
Mr Hemsley has a business partnership with Mr Wales, who is the applicant for a game bird hunting preserve on his land, to be considered by the Fish & Game council at its next meeting on November 27.
Mr Hemsley, who originally came from Sussex, began breeding pheasants in the UK. For the past five years, he has been developing an extensive breeding programme with ringneck, melanistic and Manchurian pheasants in Springvale Rd, Clyde.
‘‘It was supposed to be a hobby and it got bigger and bigger,'' Mr Hemsley said. ‘‘By next year, it will pretty well be full time.''
Mr Hemsley and Mr Wales want to diversify with the pheasant hunting preserve.
The pheasants will be taken at six weeks of age to an enclosure on the Roxburgh property. When the birds are capable of looking after themselves and adapting to the wild, they are released about two months prior to hunting.
Last year, Mr Hemsley had a trial run for pheasant hunters, letting the birds out on Mr Wales' land about a month earlier. ‘‘We released some down at Roxburgh and within three days one had reached the Roxburgh Dam about 8km away.
‘‘They'll fly away but they usually come back again.''
Feeders were put out for the birds to encourage them back to the shooting area. ‘‘There's always some that wander.''
There seemed to be plenty of interest in hunting the birds, he said. ‘‘I've done my homework to see if I've got a market .'' About 11 parties of hunters had already booked for the hunting preserve, he said.
The trial run last year had been a good indication of its potential. ‘‘We had five parties of six people in a party. They shot about 300 [pheasants] between them.''
Mr Hemsley currently has about 140 female pheasants and 30 cock birds kept in large netted enclosures on his property.
After collecting the eggs twice a day, by the end of the week he has 600 to 700 eggs ready to be incubated. The incubator is capable of holding 4200 eggs.
They remain in the incubator for about 21 days, spending the final three days before they hatch in a hatchery. There, they are put into baskets which can be cleaned and fumigated. The hatch rate after 24 days is about 88 per cent.
Once hatched, the chicks are kept under mono-chromatic lighting in a run to improve their muscle tone, body and bone structure.
This year, Mr Hemsley started breeding guinea fowl but a wandering dog destroyed them and one female he was left with died last week. However, some of 100 guinea fowl eggs purchased from a breeder in Nelson have already hatched.
Mr Hemsley intends to breed the birds for sale as he does with the pheasants. ‘‘There's no-one in New Zealand breeding guinea fowl on a commercial basis.''
The guinea fowl would be used on the hunting preserve to chase off hawks, he said.
