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Anyone know about the process of raising game birds? Is it worth the time and effort? We can have a small coop made in the suburban backyard, but is it cost effective? We would simply raise them for the purpose of training and eating. Anyone have the experience with this?
I hear that ducks are a pain to raise... but I've not tried!
If you take care of your birds, they can be used over and over for training (not eating, lol). So for me, it wouldn't make much sense to raise birds to train one dog. I've got birds in the freezer that I picked up as left overs at hunt tests, got from training buddies, etc. There are also some game farms very close to you.
You are also in a great area in that some of the hunt clubs have "live flyer nights" to get training in on live birds.
So I dont want to convince you to not raise birds, I'm just telling you how we are managing, cause I'm not raising ducks any time soon!
Oops, double post
First, you should verify you are allowed to keep game birds where you live, because most residential areas have bylaws against it. It's actually illegal to house chickens in my area and the only bird you can reliably get away with keeping are "pet" pigeons. Quail and Chukar can be relatively difficult to keep alive in the young stages. Ducks are very dirty, need two water sources and require a decent amount of space (especially if they are being used as flyers). Likewise Pheasants need adequate space (I think its recommended a min 20sqft per bird; even more for ducks) to keep their flight feathers healthy, and help prevent fighting/cannibalism, which is common in game birds. I housed a few pheasants and a couple ducks at a friends farm to be used for training and they were not worth it. The pheasants sought each other out to fight, despite a double horse stall to themselves, ducks were okay in another stall, just dirty, and not something I would want in my backyard. Chickens are much easier, in my opinion. If you are allowed to keep game birds, it's just a matter of doing some research and deciding if you are willing to devote the time and money to get started. If you run some searches on raising/maintaining them, you will find plenty of information.