Mike Holem calls it a career at the game farm

After 39 years, most at the game farm, Mike Holem called it a career at the IDNR (DOC).

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Mike Holem stands by the pens he knows so well at the Des Plaines Game Propagation Center, a couple weeks before he retired.

Dale Bowman

Mike Holem was delivering pheasants when I arrived in mid-December. District forester Jim Tresouthick tracked him down, then gave a tour of the Des Plaines Game Propagation Center near Wilmington.

After 39 years with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (Department of Conservation), most as manager of the game farm, Holem retired Tuesday. When his replacement is hired, he will be back to train the person.

Biologist Bob Massey noted Holem might not have sat for an interview without it being a surprise.

For those who hunt put-and-take pheasants in northeastern Illinois, Holem was the dedicated soul growing them. There have been changes and surprises through the years. Predators have increased, with more hawks, regular eagle sightings, raccoons and opossums. Tornadoes made a mess of the well-designed game farm.

This year had challenges, too.

‘‘It was so wet, we replanted these pens three times,’’ Holem said.

The pens — wire-mesh-enclosed fields where the pheasants are finished — are planted 50-50 in corn and milo, which help birds acclimate to field conditions.

Day-old chicks, a natural 50-50 split of cockbirds and hens, come from the state hatchery near Lincoln, then spend six or seven weeks in the brood house. They are raised on commercial game-bird food. When juvenile feathers are coming in, they are pushed outside.

‘‘The rest of their time is outside in the flight-conditioning pens of about one acre,’’ Holem said. ‘‘We do the best we can do to put them in front of the hunter and have them perform.’’

Holem was raised in rural Lake County, near extended family.

‘‘I always enjoyed the outdoors, still do, even on these cold days,’’ he said.

He started as a conservation resource tech in August 1981. In 1986, he became a district biologist with the private-land program. When the job as game-farm manager came open in 1990, he took it.

‘‘I had a hard decision,’’ Holem said. ‘‘I had landed my dream job as a district biologist. Maybe it was the move to Wilmington. At the time, we had two young girls, and it allowed us to get into a small-town situation.’’

Plus, his biologist job over nine counties involved lots of driving through the metro area.

Holem knew the new brooding systems from his time as a tech.

Budget cuts in the 1990s and staff layoffs were a ‘‘trying time,’’ he said. At the peak, there were four full-time staff members and 10 seasonal ones. Now there are two full-timers and four seasonals (six in the spring). At the peak, they worked with 60,000 chicks; now they work with about 26,000.

‘‘Eighty-five percent of them in front of the hunters in the fall — that is what we strive for,’’ Holem said. ‘‘Pheasants are pretty easy to raise, as long as you do the basic things.’’

Once the pheasants are finished, they’re driven into runways. A couple of workers get on their knees, grab birds and crate them. The game farm provides pheasants for Des Plaines State Fish and Wildlife Area, Johnson-Sauk Trail State Recreation Area, Kankakee River State Park, Iroquois County State Wildlife Area and Green River SWA.

Resized/Sun-Times

Some of the last pheasants of the year in a pen at Des Plaines Game Propagation Center in mid-December.

Dale Bowman

‘‘I enjoy them as day-old chicks and enjoy them when they get their adult feathers in the fall,’’ Holem said. ‘‘Fall is a nice time when the weather is nice and they require less work and the birds are coloring up. Then it is time for them to go.’’

In retirement, Holem said he plans to travel with his wife and do more hunting and fishing.

Wild things

More snowy-owl sightings come.

Stray cast

Listening to Hub Arkush and Terry Boers co-host a holiday-week shift was like watching a pair of 30-pound Chinook swim Belmont Harbor in early winter.

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