Unfortunately, to date, most of the centuries-old culture of pheasant cultivation has been lost. After all, these birds have long been considered royal: their soft tender meat was intended for the feasts of kings, and the animals themselves were decoration of the palaces and gardens of the richest people. In the modern world, pheasant breeding is only beginning to revive, and therefore this market segment, in the absence of great competition, is a rather interesting direction for the development of business for entrepreneurs.
Business opportunities
Currently, there are very few farms that grow pheasants, and the main needs for meat are covered by importing frozen food from Europe. At the same time, meat grown in Russia could very well be competitive due to its high enough quality. Most species of pheasants are unpretentious in cultivation, and local weather conditions in almost all regions are suitable for the healthy growth and development of these birds.
There are three areas of activity related to breeding pheasants:
- Breeding for hunting farms.
- Cultivation of birds in order to obtain meat.
- Tribal breeding of young animals.
Breeding pheasants for hunting farms
Hunting pheasants has been one of the favorite pastimes of kings and kings for many centuries. It is quite possible to continue this tradition by cultivating poultry in special enclosures.
The main difficulty of this type of activity is to rent large areas, because birds must live in conditions as close as possible to the wild. Pheasants must meet the following criteria:
- to look like their wild relatives;
- to be shy and fast;
- be able to fly well.
Only if all these conditions are met, will the hunt turn out to be spectacular and interesting for the client. To achieve this, birds need to be raised in large enclosures with a roof stretched from a capron, as shown in one of the photos. Pheasant should be kept in conditions as close as possible to natural nature.
Growing pheasants for meat
Most species of these birds have a fairly tender, tasty and dietary meat. For cultivation for meat, large cells for pheasants, rather compact aviaries, are not needed. In this case, the main emphasis must be on the choice of meat breeds. At present, breeders have bred breeds that are capable of gaining up to 2.5-3 kilograms of live weight in two to three months, and work in this direction continues.
Tribal breeding of young birds
This type of business is the most dangerous in terms of risks. It consists in the cultivation of rare and exotic breeds of pheasants with their further implementation in private collections, home zoos. People who have great financial opportunities can get involved in such hobbies as collecting rare birds and setting up private zoos. Also pheasants are an excellent decoration of restaurant and hotel complexes. As we see in the photo, the pheasant is a very majestic and noble bird.
The riskiness of this area of activity lies in the fact that the royal, copper, gold, silver pheasants are quite whimsical in their care, in addition, it is difficult to find the clients themselves. You need to have very good fame and reputation in order to break into such a market level.
Breeding pheasants as a business has another direction - the manufacture of stuffed animals, which are used in the interior of hunting houses, country villas, saunas.
Breeding pheasants of expensive breeds is worth it when you have experience in this matter, for a start you need to practice more unpretentious meat or egg-laying species.
As for pheasant eggs, they are also quite in demand in the market. With the right approach to business, buyers line up for a year in advance to purchase them. The fact is that pheasant eggs are very useful and do not cause allergies, unlike chicken, so they are often bought for children.
Pheasant conditions
Home breeding of pheasants in practice is no different from raising chickens. First you should buy a couple of dozen individuals of young growth.
Males and females should definitely be bought in different areas so that there are no family ties between individuals, in this case they will give healthy offspring. Otherwise, the brood will hurt and may not survive. The cost of one grown pheasant is 1.5-2 thousand rubles. Thus, the total amount spent on the purchase of the entire livestock will amount to 40 thousand rubles.
To build enclosures, you need to buy a nylon mesh and a netting net. This is about 10 thousand rubles. The enclosure must be immediately divided into several zones to create conditions for the comfortable existence of females that hatch eggs, young animals and the main livestock. Breeding pheasants in captivity requires at least 2 square meters. m. for each adult individual of meat breed, and for hunting breeds the free space needs to be increased tenfold so that birds can fly.
Dry feed, grain, grass are perfect as feed. At the initial stages, everything you need will need to be purchased, later you can harvest it yourself on a personal garden. Buying feed costs about 10 thousand rubles, based on the fact that for one adult bird 100 grams of the mixture are needed per day.
Precautionary measures
The aviary requires simple, but very important disinfection measures that must be carried out regularly. This whitewash mesh, daily cleaning of bird droppings, processing of all equipment with special solutions. To grow a bird such as a pheasant, the farm must always be clean and well-groomed to prevent an outbreak of the disease, which may result in the death of the entire population. All employees should use work clothing, and if outsiders visit the facility, it is necessary to use a barrier and a mats.
Pheasant Breeding Business
If the entrepreneur decided to engage in the business of raising such a bird as a pheasant, breeding and keeping is best studied at the time of planning, this will help to avoid mistakes in the process.
In order to independently grow pheasants from eggs, experts recommend buying an incubator. This will be more reliable than planting a female on eggs. The cost of equipment will cost 50-70 thousand rubles, depending on the brand and manufacturer. One female gives 1 egg every two days. The collected eggs are laid in the incubator for a month. Newborn chicks are very weak and require additional care. They are especially sensitive to cold, and they must be kept for the first weeks at a temperature of at least 38 degrees and an air humidity of about 60 percent. To do this, it is necessary to equip a special room. To feed young animals, it is necessary to use only greens, boiled eggs and flour worms. And only after a couple of months, grown and stronger birds can be launched to a common flock.
It is imperative to plant new males from time to time to your own stock of birds, young blood will not allow the flock to degenerate, and pheasants will be much less likely to get sick.
Pheasant farm staff
Breeding pheasants as a business requires a lot of time, which must be devoted to the number of birds. You need to monitor such processes:
- Pairing.
During mating, the male can be very active and cripple the female, in which case it is better to let several female individuals go to him at once.
2. Laying eggs and hatching.
In pheasant females, the memory is rather poorly developed, so they do not lay eggs in a certain place. Eggs can be scattered throughout the aviary, and they must constantly be collected, otherwise other birds will eat them. The same problem applies to hatching eggs, when the female can simply forget that she is doing this and leave the nest. In this case, you must immediately transfer the eggs to the incubator, or they will disappear.
3. Chickens and young animals.
Young growth requires special care: this is the creation of a special temperature regime and feeding.
One person can take care of a small livestock, but with an increase in the number of farmed birds, additional staff must be hired. It is advisable that the employed workers have at least a little knowledge of farming. As a rule, in practice, this type of business is represented by a family farm.
Marketing policy
There is practically no competition in the pheasant growing business in Russia today. The main buyers are restaurants, which also use imported frozen raw materials in their work. Meat from foreign manufacturers is often cheaper than local. This is due to the fact that in Europe breeding of pheasants in captivity is put on the conveyor. But at the same time very often there are interruptions in work related to the delivery and customs clearance of products, which affects the reputation of public catering establishments quite badly. In addition, local meat is always fresh, and therefore much tastier. Because expensive restaurants agree to overpay.
Pheasant meat is quite expensive, up to 1.5 thousand per kilogram, so you will not find it in a regular supermarket, but delivery to luxury stores could be arranged.
Price reduction is possible only due to the mass production of livestock, in this case, one farmland must contain at least 10 thousand heads.
Another area of implementation is hunting grounds that organize hunting. In this case, the sale price of one pheasant will be about 5 thousand rubles, and for the organization of hunting they need at least a hundred. In the future, with the expansion of the business, such events can be organized independently, having large profits from this.
Eggs, feathers and even litter of pheasants are also subject to sale.
The most difficult moment in this business is finding customers. The presence of 10-15 regular customers for meat and live birds will ensure stable prosperity and development of activities.
Financial performance
To start a pheasant growing business, you will need 120 thousand rubles of start-up capital. In just a few months, part of the grown stock can be sold, eggs laid in the incubator. You should not expect a fast start in the absence of great financial opportunities, but with the right approach to doing business in a year, the entrepreneur will have a solid pheasant farm, which means a fairly stable good income.