a customer brought me a pheasant today and i was a bit surprised. the head is the color of a rooster it has red on the face, blue on the neck and the white ring, but after the white ring it looks like a hen with a little blue on the back. has anyone encounter this before?
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Sorry Chris........I had to say it..
Actually I have had ring-necks come in in many different colors......
had a simialr 1 a few yrs back head and neck looked right then the body was offwhite with a lime green tint in some of the feathers ......had 1 with no ring on the neck and almost black in color on the body...had 1 also i'd swear was a hen but it had waddles and a long tail but no rooster colors......
feel fortunate you get 1 of the oddities........
what you have is a mule pheasant or technically a gynandromorph. It's a female which developes partial male plumage characteristics following damage to the ovaries. The damage usually comes from avian tuberculosis and stops the production of hormones. I've seen several in the past with varying amounts of male plumage. The one you have seems typical, with the head of a rooster and body of a hen.
I got one this year that was half white. Not half and half though. It's mottled throughout the entire bird. Every other feather is white. Only one of its tail feathers are white and the rest are "real" pheasant colored.
Had another customer that told me that he got cross between a pheasant and a duck . It had the body of a pheasant with the bill of a duck. Anyone know what they call those things? ;-)
Bill K.
I have seen the duck billed thing too. I think its from beak damage early in the birds life. I have heard that it is realtively common on pen raised game farm birds. Probably from hitting it on the chicken wire. One of our local gun clubs switched to a nylon mesh and they dont see damaged beaks anymore and all the birds now have better plume.