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Nitro:

What I planned and how it worked out are two different things.

My goal was to get some established on my place and the surrounding area. So for some years I bought 75 or so chicks in the spring, raised till feathered in a mesh-covered old stock tank under red heat lamps (to keep them from killing each other...which some broods will...) Then I released them after full feathering, the last few months they being raised in a pen they could fly around in.

(Collecting them for release in the dark is the way...otherwise it's absolute mayhem...)

All went well with a number seen here and there but only for the year I released them in, occasionally we'd see a couple survivors the next year. What we saw happening was they were killed off quickly by our super-abundant numbers of eagles, hawks and owls. I'd find the scattered remains all over the place and we'd see eagles diving from time to time then find the feathers. (Back in the day, all those predatory birds were considered vermin and shot on sight. Now it's a Federal crime with stiff fines, prison time, etc. IMO many of our wild game bird populations suffer as a result.)

I did shoot a few.

At any rate, of the hundreds released, effectively, we had no annual recruitment leading to an established population.

So after that, having the pen, I just raised a few to train my Lab. 40 or so a year. That worked out really well in that the dog gets excited around the pen, I suppose learns their smell, etc and then gets on a good number of birds, gets the retrieval down and that all translates into good work on grouse which we did have in some (declining...) number. Not many phezzies per year: about 40 or so, but released in two's or threes or more if a friend was over in brush and fields and given some time to run around, the dog had to work a bit to find them. Worked out great. Was a lot of fun, too. Spend a nice morning in the field, work the dog and wind up with a nice lunch and supper or two.

Alas, my old guy in the pic there went down last December. I've got a new Lab and have just a few birds this year (21) to work him on. He's just 7 months old and will be around 8 when I start.

As for how well a dog learns the ropes on pen birds, a story from about 10 years ago:

Friend of mine had a very fine Brittany. He hunted her quite a lot on the Indian ground west of us and did really well with her.

I had put out 8 or 10 as I remember and he came over and we had a good time, the object now with my "law" changed, to get every bird. By lunch time we were done, had a lot of fun working his dog which seemed to appreciate the action which was more than the usual rough country hunts where my friend took her. (No bag limit due to being pen raised, tho technically, any bird lost on a day becomes state property).

We got all but one. And we spent a lot of time trying to find that one, eventually the dog getting tired (maybe us, too...) we left the field.

Late that afternoon I was a bit rested and my Lab was jealous at not being along for the earlier hunt so I brought him over to the general area where we'd hunted and in short time he flushed that last bird and I shot it. My Lab was very proud of himself!

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