Gun Dog Forum

guys i need help in opening my own business in my country. can anyone guide me a bit on how to raise the birds, how can i hatch them to have all the time game birds, can i make the eggs fertile with a certain product or should i wait for nature to take its course.... i need help. thank you!

I recently looked at buying some Huns and ran across this article you might find interesting, however it is more of a business plan.
http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/freepubs/pdfs/ua319.pdf

thanx for the link, its a nice study! i was wondering is there a way to make all the eggs fertile?! thats my main concern cause if u have hunters everyday in 20days ull run out of birds!

Elias wrote:thanx for the link, its a nice study! i was wondering is there a way to make all the eggs fertile?! thats my main concern cause if u have hunters everyday in 20days ull run out of birds!

You will need to have adult male and female breeding birds. Gamebirds are chickens, basically, just harder to raise, depending on species. I would guess chukar and pheasant would be your best choices.

You will need adult male

i am only interested in pheaseants and chukars...... but am wodering how can i make my stock grow bigger and bigger..... if i got 1000chukars lets say 200 males and 8000females..... they will only lay eggs during the season or i can make them lay eggs whenever i want and put it in an incubator?!

I hope you have patience, money and someone close to you to help. What your talking about with 8000 hens you could have a boatload of birds! Be willing to lose your butt, it aint easy. You have to have facilities and the ground to put them on. As for your question to fertile eggs, you might want to take an anatomy course, last i checked it took a male and female to create a fertile egg. :roll: If that is a starter question, I hate to hear the rest and wish you luck!

here is another article on raising chukar.http://ucanr.org/freepubs/docs/21321e.pdf

By the way...........YOU cant make the eggs fertile. Nature is a cruel and beautiful woman.

www.purinamills.com

Takes some navigating, but they have some good stuff.

Elias -

I suggest you start out small and start out slow. Learn what you need to know on a few birds. The only difference between losing 100 pheasants and 100 chuckar and losing 1000 pheasants and 5000 chuckar is that the first case is an inconvenience and the second case is a looming bankruptcy. Yes you can lose every single bird in your pen to things like disease. It can happen ... especially when you don't know what you are looking at.

I would contact an established breeders several states away and arrange to spend a couple of weeks learning how they do what they do. I would expect to pay for the priviledge both in labor and in cash.

There are many, many isues involved with raising birds commercially. This includes government regulations regarding handling and disposal of animal wastes and carcasses, biosecurity issues, the nuts and bolts of animal husbandry regarding wildfowl in general and the species you are focusing on in particular.

You need to educate yourself.

I would initially start out with day old chicks. This way you do not have to spend the money on incubators up front. After you have been doing it on the side, so to speak, for a few years, you will have a much better idea of how to proceed and hopefully you will have a developing customer base.

Good luck to you.

RayG

I believe the OP is located outside the US.

yes am located outside the US. by making an egg fertile i meant for the sarcastic answers if it can be done manually in a way, cause i dont have that knowledge in raising birds but i look at all those breeders outside, on tv, and i see that they have a lot of birds and loadssssssss of fertile eggs so i thought there must be something behind this beside mother nature.
i already have a land, its around 30 000square meters, and i have some cash on hand around 200 000$ or a bit more. so i want to put them into a good use and make money ouf of them.
i am thinkin of ordering 1000 chukars and 1000 pheaseants and around 2000 fertiles eggs for both species. i already have incubators. but i dont wana risk it all.

You feed different food for better egg fertility. The Vitamin E is increased in the formula, among other things. Do you have commercial gamebird food available or will you have to mix your own?

Cajun Casey wrote:You feed different food for better egg fertility. The Vitamin E is increased in the formula, among other things. Do you have commercial gamebird food available or will you have to mix your own?

no commercial game bird food in here, i am ship some to my country when am done with all the planning and of course ill mix my own cause i will grow different type of grains in my land.

You need to build a clean facility.
You need very good incubators with humidity control.
You need to build good cleanable, temperature controlled brooding boxes/rooms.
You need to have staging areas for the different age birds.
You need to have good predator control, that includes rats, racoons, opposums, foxes, hawks, owls, ravens, crows etc.
You need to have good clean water all the time.
You can grow different food sources in the pheasant pens, like milo, corn or other things that they eat. You can stage the birds and move them as the feed is gone in one flight pen and move to the next.
You need to keep all clean.
You need a lot of time.
You need flight pens off the ground is best for chuckars. On ground for pheasants is okay if totally exposed to weather.
You need to be aware there are many diseases that effect the grown birds and you need to have a veterinarian near by that understands birds and their diseases so you can medicate proper.

If it were me, I would start small. I would get 2,000 eggs of which maybe 500 will make it to adult birds. I would get 1,000 day old chicks of which maybe 700 will make it then the 500 chuckars and 500 pheasants. This will give you a painfull learning curve. Disease can wipe out everything in a week.

I looked into this years ago and chose just to do enough birds for my self. Was not for me, seeing how I am of minimal means. I usually buy day old chicks or 6 week old birds.

You can subscribe to the GAme Bird Gazette. Good tool.
Rick

thank you for the help, will let u know what will happen in the coming month.

Birds need about 14 hours of light to lay eggs. Depending on where you live you will have to keep them under artificial light to keep them laying year round. I had my chickens and coturnix quail under lights and they laid almost an egg every day.

44magnum wrote:Birds need about 14 hours of light to lay eggs. Depending on where you live you will have to keep them under artificial light to keep them laying year round. I had my chickens and coturnix quail under lights and they laid almost an egg every day.

fertile eggs?!?! thats what i was searching for?!?!
cause i was reading that pheasants and chukars are different!

Elias wrote:

44magnum wrote:Birds need about 14 hours of light to lay eggs. Depending on where you live you will have to keep them under artificial light to keep them laying year round. I had my chickens and coturnix quail under lights and they laid almost an egg every day.

fertile eggs?!?! thats what i was searching for?!?!
cause i was reading that pheasants and chukars are different!

You are right I thought you meant quail. I know that pheasants have a laying season in the spring. Here is a link that describes some ways to produce more eggs during the season. It's farther down the page.

http://www.hy-fly.co.uk/pheasant.htm