First time raising pheasants

[gpc]

Receiving 30 ringneck pheasants today from McMurray’s. I’m raising them primarily as meat birds/hunting dog training, but mostly because I just love raising poultry and my chicken operation is complete.
This is my first time with pheasants, though I have plenty of experience with chickens. I repurposed my chicken brooder for them, using hay instead of flakes and providing a gamebird feed mix. Their 40x40 aviary is almost complete—should be finished by the end of the weekend.
I know the current brooder won’t be big enough for long, but should get me a few days before I can get them in something bigger. To make things easier when that time comes, I placed the brooder inside the aviary, anticipating that these little guys will be tricky to catch.
Since I’m new to raising pheasants, I’d love to hear any advice from those with experience.

 

[GodLovesU]

@007Sean, don’t you have experience with pheasants?

 

[Zenmonkey]

Definitely looks small for 30 of anything bigger than a quail. Anything specific you're looking for?

The suggested aviary yields a result of about 53 sq ft per bird if I did the math right. That seems fine, but I've quite literally never had that many pheasant at a time, and no ringnecks at all in something like 40 years, so I'll defer to someone else on that.

I like to block put the lower 18 to 24 inches with something. Boards, corrugated steel or fiberglass, twin wall polycarbonate, even just tarps or 6 mill plastic. Just something to make the birds feel hidden so the first dog, fox, coyote, whatever doesn't spook the flock into broken necks or heart attacks. 24" is way better than 18, but anything is an improvement over nothing. Maybe you've already planned that, you said it isn't finished yet.

Also some kind of cover for the birds. They might rarely ever use it, but something to hide in and get out of the rain if they need to.

 

[007Sean]

@007Sean, don’t you have experience with pheasants?

A little!