York Students Partnering With Sawbriar Lodge To Raise Pheasants

York Insitute students set to start raising pheasants and quail for a local hunting lodge.

School Director John Bush said the owners of the Sawbriar Lodge were inspired by the revitalization of the institute’s agriculture program. He said they because they already buy pheasants and quail for hunting at the lodge, Frederick Moody thought it would be a good partnership between the two entities.

“And then we’ll have a weekend hunt and you raise the pheasants and then the ag students will get not only the opportunity to learn about raising pheasants and other types of poultry,” Bush said. “They’ll also get to learn the hospitality side of the hunting business and such as that.”

Bush said they want students to see agribusiness outside of just raising crops and raising animals. He said they received a donation of $15,000 to construct a fly pen to house the birds on campus. Bush said they plan to purchase a brood of about 250 birds.

Bush said they also plan to feature produce grown from York Insitute’s greenhouse at the hunting weekend set for late October. He said that means the event at Sawbriar Lodge will have meat and produce raised entirely by the students, who will also serve as hunting guides and servers for the event.

“We’ve taught these skills of raising cattle and things like that but I don’t know that we’ve spent a lot of time on the business side of it,” Bush said. “The students will be gaining business acumen from this experience. Some of these students may be going into fields outside of agriculture like nursing or education or becoming diesel mechanics. But whatever field they’re going into, the business principles they’re learning from this, they’ll be able to apply those to any aspect of life whatever field they’re going into.”

Bush said he thinks the Moodys understand the vision and the importance of instilling these skills in the agriculture students.