What are the key techniques for raising pheasants?

The breeding eggs laid by pheasants (also called ring-necked pheasants) should be incubated as soon as they are laid. If there are few eggs, domestic hens can be used to brood them; if there are many eggs, artificial incubation can be used. The incubation period of pheasants is 24 days. During days 1 to 20 of the incubation period, the temperature should be controlled at 37.5°C and the relative humidity at 65%-70%; during the hatching period from day 21 to day 24, it should be 37°C.

Brooding is mainly about controlling the temperature well. For chicks from 1 day to 3 days of age, the suitable temperature is 34°C-35°C; from 4 days to 5 days of age, 33°C-34°C; from 6 days to 8 days of age, 32°C-33°C; from 9 days to 20 days of age, 31°C-32°C; from 21 days to 60 days of age, 26°C-28°C. For chicks from 1 day to 10 days of age, 24-hour continuous lighting should be used, and thereafter it should be reduced by 3 hours to 4 hours each week. After 30 days of age, natural lighting can be used. After the chicks hatch, they should first drink a 0.01% potassium permanganate solution, and then start feeding. Pheasants like to snack, so a multiple-feeding method should be adopted. The feed is prepared with corn, soybean cake, fish meal, wheat bran, cooked mixed meat, bone meal, green fodder and various trace additives. The crude protein content of the feed must be above 18%.

Adult pheasants can be raised in cages or free-range in netted houses. The cages used for cage rearing have the same structure as domestic chicken cages. For rearing in netted houses, perches, water troughs, feed troughs and laying boxes should be set up inside. The feed formula is: corn 41%, wheat bran 10%, soybean cake 19%, fish meal 15%, green fodder 10%, bone meal 3%, salt and trace additives 3%. Adult pheasants grow fastest from 61 days to 120 days of age. As commercial birds, selling them around 120 days of age is the most economical.