COMMUNITY
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2020
BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
“Once you get one or two
fl ying, they all do.”
— Jason Dexter
patiently, occasionally ducking
when a pheasant buzzes by
their heads, waiting for the
birds to settle down.
“Once you get one or two fl y-
ing, they all do,” Dexter said.
He said he has had a few
experiences in the pens that
reminded him of nothing so
much as “the movie” — mean-
ing, of course, the 1963 Alfred
Hitchcock fi lm adaptation of
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald Daphne du Maurier’s classic
A rooster pheasant. The
horror tale, “The Birds.”
gray cloth on the bird’s
Once the pheasants have
snout is a “blinder,” a
calmed — the lines of feed
temporary device that
that Gary Krantz poured onto
discourages the birds from the ground helping to divert
pecking each other.
the birds’ attention — he and
Cheryl start selecting roosters.
Gary, 63, uses a handheld
net to capture each bird.
Cheryl, 66, carries it to
Continued from Page 1A
the edge of the pen, where
Motorists on Highway 7,
the crates are stacked. She
just across the Powder River,
removes the “blinder” — a gray
get an unobstructed, if brief,
fabric patch that fi ts over the
view of the net-covered pens
bird’s snout and discourages
inside which more than 5,000 the pheasants from pecking
of the game birds have strut-
each other — and places the
ted at times this year.
rooster into the crate.
Dexter said that almost
(“Imagine putting blinders
every day he’ll watch at least
on 5,000 birds,” Dexter says
a few drivers pull off the high- with a rueful smile.)
way and stand on the gravel
Each crate can hold nine
shoulder, looking and, often as birds, Dexter said.
not, taking pictures.
With autumn’s cooler tem-
“This place has been quite
perature he can put that many
the buzz,” he said.
pheasants in each crate. But
On this afternoon, though,
during summer he had to limit
he’s too busy gathering birds
each container to fi ve or six, to
to watch passers-by gawking
prevent the birds, which have
across the river.
a normal body temperature of
Dexter and his parents,
105 degrees, from succumbing
Cheryl and Gary Krantz, need to the heat.
to corral about 280 roosters
24-hour operation
today. They’ll haul the birds,
Pheasants don’t spend a lot
which are tucked into wooden
crates, to a state wildlife area of time confi ned in their cages,
Dexter said.
near Monmouth.
Buyers, both ODFW and
The Oregon Department of
private game reserves, want
Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) is
birds delivered as soon as
one of the Dexters’ two main
possible after they’ve been
clients.
captured.
The couple also sell birds
Summer deliveries were
to several private hunting re-
serves. The biggest difference especially hectic, Dexter said.
Because the birds are sensi-
between the two buyers, Jason
tive to heat, Dexter said he
Dexter said, is that ODFW
and his wife, along with his
buys only roosters. That’s
because hunters on public and parents and the other employ-
ees they hired at times, often
some private land can only
legally shoot male birds. Many worked until well past mid-
night to ensure the birds were
of the roosters Dexter sells to
ODFW are released for special caged, and ready for transport,
during the cool of the night.
hunts open only to youths.
“There were six or seven
The state pays from $17.50
days when we worked on this
to $18.10 per bird, the price
depending on delivery location, all night,” Dexter said. “This
was defi nitely the hardest
said Kelly Walton, assistant
game bird biologist for ODFW. thing I’ve ever done. It’s an
incredible amount of work.”
Private game reserves, by
By comparison, he said with
contrast, can buy both hens
a chuckle, his college studies
and roosters and allow hunt-
ing of both on their own land. and training as a registered
nurse were only modestly
Rounding up roosters
taxing.
The process starts not un-
Dexter said his employers,
like a cattle drive, only with
Ashley Manor and Step For-
the soft clucking of birds the
ward Activities in Baker City,
predominant sound rather
have been “extremely fl exible”
than the thunder of hooves.
in accommodating his new
The Krantzes start at one
venture.
end of a pen and then walk
“It’s been pretty hard to
slowly forward, in effect herd- juggle both,” he said.
ing the birds to a catch pen.
Jeanie Dexter is the fi nance
The pheasants generally
director for the city of Baker
cooperate.
City.
For a few minutes.
Jason Dexter said he
But then one fl ies, its wings wouldn’t have been able to
fl apping wildly as it bounces
start the pheasant farm with-
off the gently yielding nylon
out the help from his parents.
netting.
The odometer on his diesel
In a few seconds most of
pickup truck has been spin-
the fl ock is airborne. You can
ning most of the summer.
barely make out the Krantzes
Dexter estimates he has put
among the fl urry of multi-
on 9,000 miles this year deliv-
colored feathers. They stand
ering birds to multiple places
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in Oregon and in Idaho.
“You’re defi nitely on the
road a lot,” he said.
Besides the rush to secure
pheasants last spring, Dexter
said he had to construct pens,
buy feeders and feed, and do
An unexpected beginning all the other things necessarily
Dexter said he and his wife to raise several thousand birds
had been talking about start- in a few months.
ing a pheasant farm.
“We were building pens all
They did not, however, plan the time, just trying to stay
for 2020 to be their inaugural ahead of them,” he said. “When
crop.
you’ve got 5,000 or 6,000 birds
But in early March, Jason
getting bigger and bigger ...
Dexter got a call from a friend and they get big fast.”
who raises pheasants near
Dexter said the current pens,
Middleton, Idaho.
in deference to the speed with
The friend, who had previ-
which they were assembled, are
ously sold birds to ODFW for only temporary.
youth hunts, was getting out of
He plans to improve the pens
the business.
in time for the 2021 crop.
Dexter, who grew up in
Baker City and fondly recalls Pheasants 101
Although Dexter loved to
hunting pheasants as a boy,
hunt pheasants when he was
said he wanted to make sure
pheasants would be available a boy, he acknowledges that he
for this year’s hunts, including didn’t know much about the
birds.
one at Ladd Marsh near La
But following a summer in
Grande.
which he watched something
Indeed, he said his role in
like 6,000 pheasants grow to
giving kids a chance to hunt
maturity — and deal with the
is the most gratifying part of
occasional blow to the solar
raising pheasants.
plexus — he is intimately famil-
“For a lot of these kids it’s
their only hunting opportunity iar with the species.
of the year,” he said.
And with their appetites.
When the pens were at the
And so he and Jeanie
most crowded, with around
decided to try raising birds
even though they weren’t truly 5,000 hungry gullets to sat-
isfy, Dexter said he was going
ready.
through 3 tons of feed per week.
“We ordered chicks before
The mixture, with a protein
we even had brood houses to
content of 28%, is considerably
put them in,” Jason Dexter
richer than the mash fed to
said.
Nor did they have purchase chickens, he said.
But even that wasn’t enough
contracts with ODFW.
to satiate the pheasants.
Because he started rela-
They also cropped the calf-
tively late, Dexter said it was
challenging to fi nd a suffi cient high grass in the Dexters’ river-
side meadow down to stubble.
number of birds to start his
“They mow it right down,”
farm.
“We were looking all across he said. “It’s amazing how
the country,” he said.
much these things eat. And it’s
He bought eggs and laying expensive.”
Dexter said he’s also been
hens as well as chicks.
The hens, until they stopped surprised by how territorial
pheasants are.
laying in the mid-summer
“One male will try to keep
heat, were at peak production
laying two or three eggs each all the other birds away from a
feeder,” he said.
per day.
Occasionally a pheasant will
“They lay a ton of eggs,”
manage to wriggle through a
Dexter said. “We hatched out
gap in the netting.
a lot.”
But Dexter said the birds,
He sent some of the chicks
even as they’re fluttering
to a pheasant farm in Idaho.
against the roof of the pens,
Dexter said his operation
now has an incubator, so next aren’t actually trying to escape.
Those that gain their freedom
year should be considerably
invariably try to get back into
less hectic since they will be
the pens, he said.
able to start the production
The pheasants have mainly
season with thousands of eggs
rather than having to scram- been healthy.
“We’ve had a few deaths here
ble to fi nd birds.
and there,” Dexter said.
That will be a welcome
But none of those resulted
change from 2020, he said.
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ing his own flock.
“I hate to put all my eggs in
one basket in case something
happens to the incubator,” he
said.
Fortunately, Dexter said he
knows he can rely on his fellow
pheasant farmers, across the
country, to help him in a crisis.
He said the business, perhaps
because it’s a relatively small
niche, fosters cooperation rather
than competition.
“All the raisers help each
other, and every pheasant
person knows all the others,”
Dexter said. “It’s a pretty close-
knit community.”
He said a friend in Idaho
who has been raising pheas-
ants for almost three decades is
his “go-to guy” for advice.
Dexter said patience is a key
attribute for a fledgling pheas-
ant farmer.
He doesn’t expect to turn a
profit for three years.
But Dexter said two of his
primary goals are personal
Ready for a rest
rather than financial.
The shipment of 280 roost-
He wants to help bolster
ers on Oct. 22 wasn’t the last pheasant populations in Baker
of the season — but there
County by donating birds for
won’t be many more.
release in suitable habitat.
“We’re winding down,” Dex- Pheasants generally prefer
ter said. “Thank God.”
fields and other open areas with
As with any farmer, winter brushy edges.
isn’t a vacation, exactly.
“I’d like to get the birds going
But neither will he be work- back in Baker County again,”
ing around the clock.
he said. “When I was a kid, the
Dexter plans to keep about birds were all over. Now a lot of
800 laying hens through the
people don’t even know what
winter. With the hens supply- a pheasant looks like. Every
ing eggs and the incubator
time we go out (to deliver
operating, he doesn’t expect
birds) we get asked, ‘what
to buy any chicks or eggs next kind of chicken is that?’ ”
spring.
Dexter also plans to donate
Although he doesn’t rule out pheasants for a youth hunt in
the possibility of supplement-
Baker County in 2021.
from predator attacks.
Dexter grins when asked
whether coyotes and other
animals have ever made a
meal of fresh pheasant.
The question strikes him as
amusing because of the secu-
rity system he installed.
The pens are equipped with
an array of motion and heat
sensors. When a sensor is
triggered it sets off lights and
blaring sirens.
That’s happened many
times, Dexter said, which sug-
gests that predators certainly
have been attracted by the
presence of so much meat.
Typically the alarm goes off
around dusk, the time when
night hunters usually begin
their search for sustenance.
“Jeanie calls it the witching
hour,” Dexter said.
He’s seen no evidence,
though, that any predator has
ignored the cacophony and
actually penetrated the pens.
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Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Cheryl Krantz removes the blinder from a rooster pheas-
ant just before placing the bird in a wooden crate.
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Gary Krantz pours feed at his son’s Powder River Pheas-
ant farm on Thursday, Oct. 22.
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