Raising birds
-
Hunt1Fish2
- Rank: Senior Hunter
- Posts: 116
- Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:36 pm
- Location: Rolla, North Dakota
Raising birds
Okay, I train dogs(as most of probably do as well) and im hoping to get a flight pen or 2 built for Quail and Pheasants. The pheasants will be used to try and establish a population of wild birds where I am at, as well as for training. My plan was to buy chicks. What size of area do you need per rooster and per quail? What all do you need for them while they're young. Ive always bought full grown birds before and don't really know how to properly raise the suckers from chicks. Any and all help and tips are appreciated. Thanks Devin.
Re: Raising birds
H1F2,
I got into raising some day old chicks last year on accident. Had a guy that could get day old birds from a pheasant farm they would sex them at hatch and didn't want the hens so we could get as many as we wanted. I start off with them in an old cattle tank with about 4 heat lamps going 24hours. Used wild game feed and water deals from local feed store. Basically chicken waters. I had about 300 in a tank about 4' round until about week three then they could start to fly and I moved them into an old grain bin that was about 8'x25'. I set up a water line with nipple system and continued with wild game bird feed. I real eased some at about 6 weeks and then another batch about 12 weeks and the rest about a week before season started. I had no idea how many roosters I had. The pheasant farm told me about 10% would be roosters and he was right, out of the 50 I held back before the season I ended up having 5 roosters. At about week 12/13 they start changing colors. Really cool to see it happen. I have been seeing birds around my farm lot of hens so hopefully it is working. I have 120 acres of crp, my neighbor has a 40 and another has 40 both in grass so there is some good cover.
When I moved them to the grain bin I still had heat lamps on at night until the temps at night stayed above 50-60. Around week 10 they are pretty much keep warm with their feathers and good to go. They can eat the crap load of food.
What I liked about my grain bin was they could fly roost above and I could really tell a big difference when you released them. They were strong birds.
I got into raising some day old chicks last year on accident. Had a guy that could get day old birds from a pheasant farm they would sex them at hatch and didn't want the hens so we could get as many as we wanted. I start off with them in an old cattle tank with about 4 heat lamps going 24hours. Used wild game feed and water deals from local feed store. Basically chicken waters. I had about 300 in a tank about 4' round until about week three then they could start to fly and I moved them into an old grain bin that was about 8'x25'. I set up a water line with nipple system and continued with wild game bird feed. I real eased some at about 6 weeks and then another batch about 12 weeks and the rest about a week before season started. I had no idea how many roosters I had. The pheasant farm told me about 10% would be roosters and he was right, out of the 50 I held back before the season I ended up having 5 roosters. At about week 12/13 they start changing colors. Really cool to see it happen. I have been seeing birds around my farm lot of hens so hopefully it is working. I have 120 acres of crp, my neighbor has a 40 and another has 40 both in grass so there is some good cover.
When I moved them to the grain bin I still had heat lamps on at night until the temps at night stayed above 50-60. Around week 10 they are pretty much keep warm with their feathers and good to go. They can eat the crap load of food.
What I liked about my grain bin was they could fly roost above and I could really tell a big difference when you released them. They were strong birds.
Re: Raising birds
You won't save anything by growing your own birds but it is fun to do and they are not to difficult to grow. I do quail in small numbers for training and just the fun of it. If you have the room it's fun to watch them grow. You can get a lot of information online to get you started. You don't need much to start . Pheasents are a little more work because they are bigger and require a larger area. Still not hard to raise. Most fun comes when you release them to fly on their own & knowing you were instrumental in making it happen. Lot of fun !