By: Ryan Duey
Morgan Cannizzo, of the Republican Valley Ringnecks Pheasants Forever Chapter and Co-owner of Cannizzo Outdoors, was the guest speaker at the Clay Center Lions Club weekly meeting on January 28th. Cannizzo spoke about the Pheasants Forever Chapter’s habitat initiatives and work with the local youth as well as her and her husband, Preston’s, family business.
Cannizzo said their Chapter has started a Habitat Program. The Pheasants Forever Chapter can help with financial assistance and equipment for those who would like to add habitat plots to their land to help with conservation efforts. Contact Cannizzo or a Pheasants Forever Chapter member for more information.
Cannizzo Outdoors does a multitude of things including: raising pheasants and chukars, guided bird hunts, and also training and breeding hunting dogs. Cannizzo spoke a bit about their bird numbers and new guided hunting operation.
“We raise about 24,000 pheasants every year and we’ve had around 2000 chukars. We can get more chukars, depending on supply and demand.”
“Our guided hunts are day hunts with minimum groups of four people and in multiple locations. During the day hunters get breakfast and lunch. Each hunter gets a four-bird limit. Preston is the guide, and we use our dogs. At the end of the hunt, he’ll clean up birds and hunters get to take the pheasant or chukar meat home.”
“We hunt in a Controlled Shooting area, so we can do hunts from October 1st to March 30th. We mainly do weekends only right now; we will start phasing in weekday hunts over time.”
Cannizzo said they also sell pheasants to Outfitters both in Kansas and across the Midwest. She detailed the process of raising the many birds.
“We get pheasants as day-old chicks. We start them in the A Room, which is a smaller room, and they stay in the A Room from zero to three weeks. At three weeks they move to the B Room, which is a 20×20 room, and at about four weeks we put their peepers on, which blocks their vision, so they can’t fight so they don’t kill each other.”
“Then at six weeks, they get put in our Flight Pens, the pens are 150 feet wide by 750 feet long. Each Flight Pen holds about 3000 birds. We have a total of 8 Flight Pens at the farm.”
To learn more about Cannizzo Outdoors visit www.cannizzooutdoors.com. You can also keep up to date on the Republican Valley Ringnecks Pheasants Forever Chapter by visiting their Facebook page.
