pheasant hens

Try Gisi Pheasant Farms, Ipswich SD,   605-426-6066.  It may be too far for you, maybe 160 from Bis.   I think that they sell hens in the spring after they take some eggs.  You need to get on their list early.

Waste of money IMO. Unless you feel like feeding fox, yotes and hawks.

I have seen hens that still have the blinders on hatch broods and raise them in the wild.

The funny thing is the pheasant is not a native bird to America. Someone was very successful in releasing birds.

Do a good good and pound in the spring/late winter of feral cats, skunks, racoonns, fox, yotes, etc and plant 3 times more hens than you were thinking you needed.

Many chuckar got loose this last winter and watched over 20 boods of little chuckars this summer.

Like I said, we've never done this but I have talked to another friend who has hens released in the spring through a county sportsman's club and there numbers for that area have seen a very large increase over the past few years.  Just figured it can't hurt to release 50-100 hens in the spring and hope that half or better get bred by the roosters that are leftover.  Checked with Dakota Gamebirds and they are 8.50/hen.  Was hoping to find some other places that might be a little less. 

I released 75 hens and 10 roosters in an area that I hadn't seen more than 5 pheasants in the past year.  That was 7 years ago and have taken many, many limits out of the area since then.  A couple of us worked pretty hard on the predator population in the area - - in this limited example, the process worked well.  I'm glad I did it.  Following last winter, I released another 50 hens this spring, and did see a decent number of broods through the summer.   No way to know if this spring's release helped or not, but I like to believe it did.  Of course, habitat is the real key, but you've got to start somewhere with starting birds in the area.

release hens are not a waste of money, chick raise are touch and go but laying hens in the spring have a chance if you can control predators for a few weeks.

I used to buy some pheasants and raise them in a pen. I ordered them in the mail from some company but I can't remember the name.  You have to make sure you don't keep them too long or release them too early or they have problems. I think they say they should be about 5-6 weeks old before you let them go. It was pretty easy just put them in a plywood box in the garage. Had heat, food and water. After 5 weeks take them out and let' em go. We have had great numbers for hunting ever since.

did the same thing the first year i had my place.  bought 100 from a place PPK?? or something like that west of grand forks about 30 miles and north 10 or so.  raised em till they were bout 7-8 wks old.  opened the garage door and shooed them out.  stupid birds.  bout 20-25 of them flew right into the middle of the slough, flopped around for about 30 seconds and drowned.  that coupled w/ the 10 or so that drowned in a 5 gallon bucket b4 i released them (bucket was catching water from a leaky roof) sure cut my success % back.  but, was fun and a good learning experience. 

...adult hens seem to be the best bet.  If broods are hatched in the wild, at some point, survival of the fittest begins to dictate the gene pool.  With good habitat, weather and predator control, some will survive and the following year, the gene pool will be better.  All U.S. pheasants were transplants.  That being said, not all stocking efforts are successful, but if we have any pheasants to hunt at all, apparently, some stocking efforts, whether 100 years ago or not, must have worked...  My opinion is that releasing adult birds in the spring is certainly not a sure thing... but if the habitat and the predator population are in correct proportions, it can be THE BEST THING.

yeah and right now I think the predator population is out of control. We need to start thining out the fox and coyote before any new hens will survive.