A melanistic phase animal has a trait that affects the pigmentation of an animal . And albino would be the reverse pigmentation of melanistic phase animal .I have seen pictures of melanistic phase groundhog ,white tail deer ,red fox squirrels and some types of song birds .There are numerous species of pheasants And of course they have many color variations If you really look closely mot animals have a wide variety of color differences. Red fox come to mind I live in area that has lots of fox But no two are alike .And often I catch a wide color variation from the same properties .

Guys, think it is a sichaun pheasant as stated above. They look like the one Snowpa's grandson is holding.

It could be a mechanistic ringneck but I'm betting it's a sichaun.

Either way, if he wants to mount it, he should. Then he should have a ringnreck mounted next to it.

There's more than 30 strains of ringneck pheasants in the wild in Asia and dozens of colors in captivity. Many different species of pheasants will cross with ringnecks too. I had 1750 black ringnecks like that back in 1997 and smaller numbers, many years since.

If he wants it mounted, I would get it mounted.

This was the coolest mutted up pheasant I ever had. The picture doesn't do him justice. In sunlight, he was spectacular.



I've had sky blue, apricot, yellow piece, peach, electric blue, black, melanistic brown, green, white, buff, blueback, greenback, copper and red ringneck pheasants. There's a lot more colors available than those.

People have selectively bred ringneck pheasants since before the formation of the Roman Empire, which stocked them everywhere they conquered and spread.

Keith

I remember when the PA Game Commission decided to switch to the Sichuan pheasant for stocking pheasants here in PA As I remember they made a deal with the Michigan DNR to buy all of their birds Part of the reasoning was that the Sichuan bird was more inclined to nest in brushy ,woody and other heavy cover areas similar to turkeys . While the Ring Neck we are use to in a bird that prefers to nest in grass /hay type areas As I recall it was supposed to be either a 4 or 5 year test program but because it was a flop they cut it short by a year .The characteristics that where supposed to make it a more suitable pheasant for the habitat in PA did not pan out .Because the rick neck pheasant was so plentiful in PA and many other states people tend to forget that the pheasant is not native to the North America continent

Right West Side, they are all non-natives. They're still great fun to hunt though!

I remember when the PGC started stocking the sichauns. The first one I flushed I didn't shoot at because I wasn't sure what exactly it was. Back then we still had the cockbirds only rule.

Were your black pheasants sichauns Keith?

Doug, Sichuan is a name used to describe several different captive strains of ringneck pheasants that vary in appearance. It's a province in China. The pheasants I have seen called sichaun have all been similar to the regular ringneck in color.

I had blacks from many different sources over the last 25 years. They are called by lots of different names by the people selling them. Most are crossed with other color varieties, which makes them vary widely in how dark they are and whether they have red, green, copper or blue iridescence in the sun.

Keith

As I recall the Sichuan pheasants that the PGC where stocking during the time they switching from the ring neck where a slightly darker bird without the typical white ring on their neck .But as Keith states they vary in color And Lugnut you are 100% correct .What ever name you call them they are still a fun way to spend a day with a dog or two hunting

Interesting Keith, I knew Sichaun was a province in China. But I didn't know it was a generic name used to describe various strains of pheasants. The ones I saw stocked in my area were very dark or black with no rings on the necks (as West Side said) but they had a typical rooster's tail. . Our game commission called them sichauns. I assumed that was a name for a specific strain of pheasant.

West Side, one of my favorite things to do is to hunt those Chinese chickens over my labs.

Go for it!

Osky