Examination of farmed pheasant mortality rate during the breeding season

Abstract

The Ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), a bird native to the Asian continent, has been widely introduced as a game bird, and is of considerable importance in the hunting industry of many European countries and in the USA. As an example, an estimate of around 30 million pheasants are released every year on the United Kingdom alone, making this game bird breeding and releasing industry economically relevant. This lead to pheasant farming being a common practice. The captive breeding is mainly directed for the releasing of the animals for hunting purposes, being their release less associated with the re-establishment and recovery of naturalised populations in order to reduce farming numbers of these game birds. The purpose of this work is to examine the Ring-necked pheasant mortality rates and their main causes, more specifically when kept in an intensive system, during a breeding season in one Hungarian pheasant farm. By examining the most common mortality causes there is a gain in understanding in how to improve pheasant farming technologies.