A cock pheasant perched on a wooden field fence above a hedge

What raising game birds involves

Brooder first, then a pen with a roof

Most game birds arrive as day-old chicks in a ventilated box from a hatchery. They spend their first six to eight weeks indoors in a brooder under heat, eating a starter crumble with far more protein than chick feed. Once feathered they move outside to a covered pen or a wire cage. From then on the routine is ten minutes morning and evening: fill the feeder, rinse and refill the waterer, look each bird over, collect eggs. Weekly you clean out droppings. None of these birds is as tame as a hen, and all of them fly, which is why the pen has a roof.

Pick your bird

Quail RaisingCoturnix quail are the usual first game bird. They are quiet, need one square foot each, and lay an egg a day from about eight weeks old. They live roughly two years.

Start here

Order 10 to 15 coturnix chicks or hatching eggs and set up the cage before they arrive. Plan one square foot of floor per adult bird and keep one male for every four or five hens.

Poultry Extension: raising Japanese quail

Pheasant RaisingRing-necked pheasants are hardy and showy, but nervous. They need a large netted flight pen with brush to hide in, and most states require a license to keep them.

Start here

Call your state wildlife agency and ask what license you need to keep ring-necked pheasants. Then stake out a pen site with 25 square feet per bird and buy the top netting to fit it.

Turkey KeepingTurkeys are the friendliest of the five and follow you around the yard. They are also the biggest eaters, and poults are fragile for their first month.

Start here

Decide between a broad-breasted type (table weight in 14 to 18 weeks, cannot breed) and a heritage type (about 7 months, can stay for years). Order at least three poults, because a lone turkey does poorly.

Poultry Extension: raising meat turkeys

Guinea Fowl KeepingGuineas roam a property eating ticks and grasshoppers and scream at anything unfamiliar. They suit acreage with no close neighbors.

Start here

Warn the neighbors, then start with six or more keets, because guineas raised from keets stay home better than adults moved in. Feed them a handful of millet at the coop door every evening from the first week.

Poultry Extension: raising guinea fowl

Peafowl KeepingA long commitment. A peacock grows his full train at three years old and his spring call carries half a mile.

Start here

Find a breeder within driving distance and buy a pair of yearlings or a few peachicks of the India Blue type, the hardiest. Have the covered pen finished first: new peafowl leave if they are loose in the first three months.

United Peafowl Association: breeders

Open a card for the first thing to do, then add its gear to put that bird's lines in the kit. Picking one bird takes the others out.

A young brown turkey walking through long grass at the edge of a wood — A young turkey on grass

How to get started

Tick these off as you go

A blue peacock standing on bare earth in front of a tin shed

Housing and space by species

From one square foot to a hundred

Coturnix quail

1 square foot per bird in a wire cage or hutch. Keep the ceiling either under 12 inches or over 6 feet, because startled quail jump straight up and injure their heads at heights in between.

Pheasants

25 square feet per bird in a flight pen at least 6 feet tall, with netting over the top and shrubs or pine boughs inside for cover.

Turkeys

6 to 8 square feet each in a night shelter with a low, wide roost, plus fenced grass by day. Move the fence every week or two so the ground stays clean.

Guinea fowl

3 square feet each in a coop with high roosts for the night. Keep new birds shut in for two weeks before letting them range, and release one at a time.

Peafowl

80 to 100 square feet per bird in a pen at least 6 feet tall, with a roost 4 feet up and room for a 5-foot train to turn around.

Every pen

Half-inch wire mesh on the walls, a 12-inch skirt of the same mesh laid flat on the ground outside to stop digging, and a roof or net overhead.

Permits, disease and safety

Native game species are regulated as wildlife. Bobwhite quail and pheasants need a game breeder or propagation license in most states, and releasing any pen-raised bird is restricted nearly everywhere. Coturnix quail, domestic turkeys, guineas and peafowl usually count as ordinary poultry, but confirm it with your state wildlife agency.
Zoning treats these birds as poultry or livestock. Guineas and peacocks draw noise complaints from a quarter mile away, so check nuisance ordinances as well as animal limits.
Do not keep turkeys, pheasants or peafowl on ground where chickens live or recently lived. Chickens carry blackhead disease without symptoms, and it kills turkeys in particular.
All poultry can carry Salmonella while looking healthy. Wash your hands after handling birds or eggs, keep a pair of shoes for the pen only, and do not let children under five handle chicks.
Avian influenza reaches backyard flocks through wild waterfowl and their droppings. A roofed pen and a feeder kept under cover are the main defenses. Report sudden unexplained deaths to your state veterinarian.
Tom turkeys and peacocks can turn aggressive in the breeding season. Do not hand-raise a male as a lap pet, and supervise small children in the pen.

Flock testing, health and biosecurity

What trips beginners up

Feeding chicken starter.

At 18 to 20 percent protein it stunts quail, pheasant chicks and turkey poults, which need 28 to 30 percent.

Chicks piling in corners.

Chilled or frightened chicks heap up and smother the ones underneath, so round off the brooder corners with cardboard.

Turkey poults that will not eat.

They are slow to find feed, so tap the crumbles with a finger and scatter some on a paper towel until they catch on.

Crowding.

Pheasants and quail pluck and wound each other when short of space or bored, and it starts within days.

Startling the birds.

Pheasants and quail panic at sudden movement and fly into the wire, so move slowly and do chores at the same times each day.

Too many males.

Extra male quail scalp the hens, and two peacocks in one pen fight. Plan what happens to surplus males before you hatch any.

Grey and white guinea fowl ranging across a green lawn under trees — Guinea fowl out on the grass

Where to learn more

Your state's cooperative extension service publishes free, tested care sheets for each of these species, and the national Poultry Extension site collects them in one place. Each bird also has its own association, which is the fastest way to find a breeder near you and someone to call when a bird looks off. A local feed store is worth a visit early: staff know which hatcheries deliver well in your area and whether the store stocks game bird feed or has to order it.

Extension articles, the species associations and a keeper forum

How the shopping list is put together

The base list is what every species shares: two stages of high-protein feed, a feeder and waterer, wire mesh, bedding, and the brooder gear for the first weeks. Housing is where the species split, so each bird has its own add-on with the piece that only it needs. Posts, lumber and the night shelter for the larger birds come from a local yard and are not in this list. Feed is the ongoing cost and it is heavy to ship, so price a bag at a feed store before ordering one online. The birds themselves range from a few dollars for a quail chick to a hundred or more for a peachick.

Speckled quail eggs piled in a nest of dry grass — Quail eggs

Outfit the pen

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the cart. Clicking a card selects it there. The first line, the birds themselves, is not something you buy online: they come from a hatchery or a local breeder. Each bird's own gear joins the kit once you switch on Quail Raising, Pheasant Raising, Turkey Keeping, Guinea Fowl Keeping or Peafowl Keeping.

The birds

essential · Livestock

Day-old chicks from a hatchery or started birds from a local breeder are the real first purchase. Everything else on the list is sized around how many you order.

Not sold on Amazon · hatchery or local breeder

Not sold on Amazon. Buy from a hatchery or breeder whose flock is certified under the National Poultry Improvement Plan, and ask about the minimum order: hatcheries ship 15 or more chicks together so they keep each other warm. Expect a few dollars per quail chick, $5 to $15 per pheasant chick, poult or keet, and $40 to $150 per peachick.

Game bird starter feed

essential · Feed

Game bird chicks grow fast and need 28 to 30 percent protein for their first six to eight weeks.

budget

KALMBACH Feeds Wild Flush 28 Pheasant Starter Medicated Poultry Feed, 50-LB Bag

4.3(11)

$45.99

Game Bird Raising

What raising game birds involves

Pick your bird

How to get started

Housing and space by species

Permits, disease and safety

What trips beginners up

Where to learn more

How the shopping list is put together

Outfit the pen

The birds

Game bird starter feed

Game bird grower feed

Poultry feeder

Poultry waterer

Half-inch hardware cloth

Pine shavings bedding

Brooder heat plate

Chick feeder and waterer

Quail cage

Quail egg cartons

Flight pen top netting

Electric poultry netting

Solar fence energizer

White millet

Walk-in covered run

Egg incubator