Partridge: breeding and maintenance at home. Breeding and maintenance of ptarmigans at home as a business

Breeding ptarmigans at home as a business idea is wonderful, especially interesting for beginning businessmen who live in rural areas and do not have starting capital and other opportunities for earning. Why?

Business for beginners

Breeding ptarmigans is a fascinating occupation, but it also makes a profit. Than in this regard, partridges are interesting? Breeding and maintenance at home of this bird has not yet become widespread, and there is a demand for it. Hence, the competition will be low, and there will be no problems with sales. This is the first advantage. From it follows the following: prices for poultry and meat can not be low, hence, income is secured. The third advantage is low costs and lack of initial investment, which is very important in the emerging business. And time costs are low, and incomes are high, then profits ... Correctly - big, but not immediately.

More on the Gray Grouse

Partridge gray - a sedentary bird, common in the wild. In Russia, it lives in the Altai, the Urals, the Caucasus, Western Siberia, Karelia, the steppe and forest-steppe zone of the center and west of the country.

It is a small bird with a body length of about 30 cm, round in shape. The mottled coloration is only visible near and helps the bird to be invisible against the background of vegetation and earth.

Ptarmigan lives in open country, in a field or steppe, nests on the ground, in well-protected places. Females croak, almost like chickens, males make a cry like a cock.

By winter, partridges move closer to people and often spend the night in economic buildings.

Partridge can move quite quickly even in dense grass and, if necessary, with a noisy and screaming high take off.

They live in packs of several dozen birds, but diverge in pairs during the mating season and live in a family, raising their chicks equally, to cold weather.

During the season the partridge lays an average of 25 eggs.

The enemies of partridges in nature are predatory birds, animals, severe winters and, naturally, hunters.

These birds are so similar to ordinary chickens that it becomes unclear what problems can be caused by the breeding and maintenance of partridges at home.

Room for partridges

Partridge does not need a large shed and a specially constructed room. The main thing is that it should be dry, warm and without drafts. Since the partridge is a wild bird, it needs an enclosure with a high fence for walks. In the area of walking must necessarily grow tall grass and thorn bushes of thorns or dogrose, which in the natural habitat prefer to protect partridge. Breeding and keeping a wild small bird at home is not so difficult. High grass, thorn bushes, warm straw litter - nothing unusual or expensive.

Partridge - still not a chicken, it rises high enough, so many farmers in a fenced enclosure install cages with a roof. True, many experts agree that in the open area the bird grows better and gains weight. Spend the night partridge in a barn, the floor in which you must necessarily cover with straw or hay, changing the litter every other day. Dry grass protects partridges from low temperatures. Therefore, it must be stocked in the summer so that it lasts until next summer.

Partridges are afraid of drafts, in the poultry house you need to carefully repair all the cracks. They also do not tolerate loud sounds, so the walls of the shed can be insulated from inside with soundproof material, which at the same time will slightly warm it.

In one cage measuring 35 × 25 × 20 cm, three pairs of partridges can be kept. There is enough artificial light in the poultry house, but it must be mandatory.

Food

Partridge is not capricious and does not get sick. Therefore, there are no problems with food. In nature, the bird eats grass, various bugs and their larvae. Partridge, breeding and keeping in the home conditions of which is not yet so common that for them a special compound feed has been developed, they gladly eat chicken or turkey feed, any grain or cereals.

They need calcium gluconate in sufficient quantities, so near the feeder should always be chalk or crushed seashells. When feeding poultry with coarse fodder to improve digestion, it needs coarse-grained sand. The water in the drinking bowl must be necessarily clean and fresh.

Breeding ptarmigans at home

Councils of specialists and farmers begin with the acquisition of several pairs of partridges. But in principle, to start with, just one different-sex pair. And the cells need less, and the males do not fight, and the costs are lower. And not so offensive if the experiment is unsuccessful.

There are three ways of acquiring birds. The most expensive, but also the easiest way - to buy ptarmigan on a specialized farm. There you can get professional advice, which will require the breeding and maintenance of partridges at home. The cheapest, but not always feasible, way is to catch wild partridges in the field. The most laborious, but requiring special equipment and long enough - to withdraw the chicks from the eggs in the incubator.

Growing of ptarmigan chicks

Breeding and keeping at home ptarmigan is not as difficult and laborious as it seems. Only the growing of young animals will be required, but it does not differ from the cultivation of chicks from any other poultry.

Ptarmigan eggs are laid at the end of April, this period lasts twenty six days. All this time the male should be in one cage with the female to fertilize the eggs. They take males and females in different cells around mid-summer.

During the season, one ptarmigan produces about sixty eggs, and only fifteen is allowed to sit for one clutch. Excess eggs can either be sold, or use an incubator.

In the early days the hatched chicks should be with their mother, they should be planted in a separate cage in about a week. For a walk they start releasing them at a month's age. Fresh air and warm sun, dry land, overgrown with grass - the main conditions for rapid growth and normal development of partridge chicks.

Breeding and keeping young animals at home does not require special knowledge on its feeding. In the first days it is fed with mashed yolks of hard-boiled eggs and finely chopped dandelions and yarrow, growing at this time almost everywhere. On the third day you can give crumbs of white bread, in five days - boiled meat or ant eggs, twice a day, gradually increasing the amount of food.

The benefits of breeding partridges

So, going back to the beginning, now you can already answer the question, why it is beneficial to breed partridges at home. Business ideas in rural areas and suburban settlements are not so diverse. Basically, this is the breeding and sale of domestic animals and poultry.

Partridge in this respect have some advantages. On the market today, the meat of this bird is represented in insufficient quantity, and there is a demand for it. All more or less expensive restaurants have on the menu dishes from rare bird species and are ready to purchase them from trusted suppliers. And on its own table this dietary, environmentally friendly meat without additives is a big plus.

Eggs of ptarmigan have a unique chemical composition, they are rich in vitamins, and in cooking they can completely replace chicken. Requirement one - they must necessarily be subjected to heat treatment, roasting, oven or cooking. They are also in demand in cosmetology.

In the maintenance of a bird unpretentious, care is not required, they are ill very rarely. Features of rearing ptarmigans at home are not so difficult and impracticable, even a beginning farmer who has a private house and outbuildings can handle breeding.

True, there is still complexity, but not with proper breeding, but with the tax inspectorate. Business should be registered in the direction of the activity "Breeding of agricultural poultry".

Of course, from the first year of profit is not expected, but the second year can bring some revenue. In addition, the word-of-mouth radio operates, which greatly facilitates the realization of partridges, their eggs and meat.