A Nebraska pheasant farmer plans to hatch 350,000 birds at his farm this year to supply hunting preserves around the Plains and Midwest.
The Lincoln Journal Star reports that 90 percent of Dustin Chrisman's birds at Double Barrel Game Farm are expected to be pheasants, but he also hatches some chukars and bobwhite quail.
Family friend Les Brozovsky sparked Chrisman's interest in hatching when he was just a second-grade student. Chrisman would work for Brozovsky after school, collecting and washing eggs and cleaning incubators.
Before Brozovsky died just a few years later, he gave Chrisman a Sears-Roebuck incubator that was about the size of a small dresser and capable of holding about 300 eggs.
Now, Chrisman uses five climate-controlled incubators, each one capable of holding more than 21,500 eggs.
