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From Farm To Field | DNR Facility Leads The Way On Wisconsin Pheasant Stocking
Zach Wood
Zach Wood is a public information officer in the DNR’s Office of Communications.
Hunters walking through fields of golden grasses alongside their trustworthy dogs. A pheasant, flushed from the field, taking wing against the crisp blue sky. The crack of a shotgun aimed at a bird in flight.
The sights and sounds of Wisconsin’s pheasant season are synonymous with fall in Wisconsin. And yet, much of the work that makes this season a reality starts in the spring.
Kicking it all off is the incubation of roughly 300,000 ring-necked pheasant eggs at the Wisconsin State Game Farm, the source of every single pheasant stocked on Wisconsin’s public lands.
Located next to the MacKenzie Center near Poynette, the State Game Farm will hatch approximately 240,000 chicks by the end of the hatching season, April-July. Many of these chicks also will be reared, or raised, at the facility; others will go to conservation clubs as part of the DNR’s Day-old Chick program.
Immediately after hatching, pheasant chicks go into one of two environmentally controlled brood-rearing barns to be raised for the first six weeks. About 85,000 hatchlings are started in the brooder barns.
At 6 weeks old, chicks are transferred from the rearing facilities to the game farm’s outdoor fields. Most birds grow and are released in the autumn, though there is slight mortality over the months and some pheasants sent to breeders or used for Learn to Hunt programs leading into the fall season.
Win-Win For Wildlife
Just how many of these birds end up stocked around Wisconsin each year? A lot, said Kelly Maguire, the DNR’s State Game Farm manager.
“In 2024 alone, the DNR stocked approximately 75,000 pheasants from the State Game Farm on over 88 properties statewide, many of them state wildlife areas,” she said.
With production like that, one might assume the operation would come at an equally hefty price to taxpayers. But that’s not the case.
“Our operation is smaller than people would think,” Maguire said. “Only six full-time employees and a handful of (limited-term employees) — and there’s no general tax revenue involved.”
“Our work is entirely funded by license revenues and money from the pheasant stamp. In fact, only 60% of pheasant stamp revenue goes to supporting the game farm.”
The other 40% of that stamp money “goes directly towards habitat improvements around the state,” Maguire added. And that’s good for more than just pheasants.
“Because pheasants utilize all sorts of habitat, that restoration work benefits a wide variety of wildlife species,” Maguire said. “It’s really a win-win situation.”
Important Partners
Habitat improvement isn’t the only dual benefit the State Game Farm creates. The facility also provides a boost to conservation partners through the Day-old Chick program. Conservation clubs enrolled in the DOC program agree to provide all labor and costs for raising the birds.
Under this agreement, clubs are permitted to release pheasants on private lands closed to public hunting, but they must return a percentage of the pheasants they raise back to the DNR.
Clubs also have the option to release pheasants on private land open to public pheasant hunting or on approved state-owned lands. Interested pheasant hunters must contact the landowner prior to pheasant hunting on private property.
Breeding Better Birds
Another noteworthy feature of the game farm is its entirely insular and self-sustaining nature. The farm maintains what’s known as a “closed flock,” Maguire said, meaning no birds come from external sources. All the pheasants are born, raised and bred within the game farm’s existing flock.
By keeping everything in-house, there’s no risk of exposing the flock to diseases that a bird from elsewhere might carry. It should also be noted that the pheasant flock at the State Game Farm is large enough to avoid any genetic issues. It all adds up to better pheasant-rearing success — and, come fall, better hunting.
Learn More
For more on the State Game Farm, including the Day-old Chick program, check out the DNR's State Game Farm webpage.
For details on pheasant hunting and management in Wisconsin, visit the DNR's Pheasant Hunting webpage.
Hunters can use the DNR’s Fields and Forest Lands Interactive Gamebird Hunting Tool to locate properties stocked with pheasants from the State Game Farm.
