Dont read this if your squemish, I have 25 free range hens, which have a large pen, they stay in the pen/run till lunch time then they are allowed

[alinic]

to roam free till about 10pm, then they got back in pen/run hen house.
They roam in the fields and wood.
Now the question is, this morning we had a call from one of our friends whom we give eggs to, said two eggs that he cracked open where full of blood and had half grown embryo in it?(yeach) any how as we dont have a cock, how cld this be? cld it be possible for a cock pheasant as there is some about here?
Thanks

[Tilly2]

I know nothing about chickens but I doubt they would mate with a pheasant.

[DTCwordfan]

is there a cock on the loose in the woods from someone else......or do you have a secret transvestite in your pens, a cock that masquerades as a chick!

[RATTER15]

It sounds like you need to collect your eggs more regularly if it was half grown! No a pheasant could not fertilize a hen.

[alinic]

Ratter our eggs are collected every day! sorry maybe i worded it wrong, the start of an embryo.

[jake-the-peg]

Anybody else in the area keep chickens? perhaps a cock got out.

If no Ithink you may be right

Here are some pictures of pheasant chicken crosses

http://feathersite.co.../BRKRingNHybrids.html

Funny looking things!

[NOX]

Most domestic fowl will cross breed so you can end up with some real weirdities so the pheasant scenario is quite likely, other than that have another look at your ladies.

[rowanwitch]

be interesting to know what the hybrids taste like...

[RATTER15]

I stand corrected, our chickens (no cock) arrive very soon and we have regularly have pheasants in the garden!!

[venator]

Would they be phickens or cheasants?

Where's Chuckfickens when you need him?

[Tilly2]

So do I.

[Tilly2]

...............stand corrected, that is.

[rowanwitch]

You might need to shoot the pheasants can I collect a couple next week

[alinic]

Rowanwitch lol, how many do you want?/ so it sounds possible my wee hens are having their way with the local cock pheasant! dirrrty birds!

[rowanwitch]

Equal opportunities chooks... No cock girls ...they might see the pheasant as an exotic foreigner... a bit like we might see antonio banderas

[DTCwordfan]

maybe Chuckfickens is really a cross - Prince Charles and a chicken, it defies imagination......

[Frank97]

I learn something new every day on this site!

[Clanad]

Like so many other species, (domesticated or not) pheasants are breeders of opportunity. Here in the western U.S, where Ring Neck Pheasants are a prime game bird, they are regularly witnessed interbreeding with chickens and some other fowl (guinea hens, for example, but not ducks). Whether this will produce viable off-spring seems to rely on the lineage of the hen... Many hen chickens are the reults of hybrid breeding and seem to be sterile when bred with pheasants...

[shoota]

Swipe me - you do learn something everyday.
Pheasant season starts October Rowan..........

[rowanwitch]

Who's to know.....

[shoota]

Oooh you are awful RW!