Training Birds Question

[Just Hunting]

I noticed that some people were looking for birds to train their dogs. I work my bird dog as well and have noticed a shortage of birds to use. I own a farm and am looking into raising birds to sell, so people can get good strong flying birds to use for training.

What type of birds would you be interested in (Pheasant, Chucker, Quail)?

How many would you want in a year?

What are you willing to pay?

I AM NOT TAKING ORDERS. I am just courious if their would be enough interest for me to do it. Let me know what you think

[Shannon]

I could use 150 or so chukar next year with about a dozen pheasant thrown in. I would pay the going rate for them. I know several other guys that would use about 40 each. Birds were hard to find this year.

[Birdguy]

PM sent  .

[jetjockey]

I was one of the guys looking for birds for my dad.  I think he's going to make some calls in the next few days.  Im not sure about Washington, but down here in Georgia, everyone uses bobwhites.  IMO, for training, I want something cheap, that I can also eat.  We get bob's down here for about $3.50-$4 a bird.  It makes it cheap to pick up 10-15 birds and have a fun training sesion, or mock hunt.  If your selling to other farms, then the possibilities are endless.  But for me, bob's work just fine.

[Happy Gilmore]

I don't know for sure but, someone was saying something about "Mountain Quail"? Cortuenix---can't spell that one are supposed to hold up to the moisture better around here than Bobs or Californias.

[Special T]

I know a guy that has Bobs and california. The bobs do much better than the california valley quail. If i were to raise them to eat and train i would raise either Chuckar or Hun partridge. I do not know how well they do on this side of the mountaisn tho. Most people don't use quail for trainer thier retrivers Because they are too small. If you were gona do it as a hobby that pays for itself you need to raise something for retrievers and pointers. Phesants don't do so hot on this side and require lots of space. Covey birds require less and you could build a recall system into to the pen to let them roam a little for more naturalbug eating birds... I don't know about ducks, i would imagine they might be easy to raise but arn't likely to fly nearly as well as huns or chuckars. 

[Birdguy]

Mountain quail and coturnix are two totally different quail. Mountains are native to WA and are getting pretty rare in the wild (not protected or anything but no where near the numbers of 20 years ago) and are very tough to raise in captivity. When you can find them for sale they generally run between $70 and $150 a pair so not likely a training bird. They are very pretty and a bit smaller than a hun.
Coturnix are the rat of the quail world. They are smaller than a bobwhite, quite fragile, do NOT do well in wet areas, fly poorly and generally pretty short distances, my labs could catch any of them. I raised 1000s of them. They are cheap, easy to care for, reproduce like crazy... incubation is 17 days and 6 weeks later the same birds will be laying fertile eggs, you can have an army in no time. Most coturnix raisers either sell the eggs, or have contracts with reptile, or cat food companies.
Both birds are edible, mountains require a state game license to sell, coturnix require nothing but a buyer.

In western WA none of the birds do great when it is wet outside (most of the time). Chukar are the easiest to raise in my experience (I raised about 1000 this year) but food, the game license, and the state certification for release is making it too expensive and I have the incubators/brooders/grow out pens and flight pens built. PM me if you have any questions about gamebirds I have been doing it for years and while I do not know it all I know a bunch and I am more than willing to share.

[Happy Gilmore]

bad punctuation. I meant them separately. I know the Mountain Quail and Coturnix(had to look at your spelling:)) are different. I had some bob's here. They did fine until they get out. I don't think they lasted more than a week out on their own this spring. They too were very small and could squeeze through just about every little gap in the flight pens. That is another consideration for small birds for me. My flight pens are about 20' wide and 300' long divided in the middle. (old dairy barn) Small birds find every little place to get out. Small Chukar are the limit without re-fencing the big pens. Kept the Bob's in a smaller 12'x12' with finer wire on the second batch I got.

I'd say there were probably at least 50 chukar out after a few hunt tests here. They were not here after a couple days. Of course myself and others were out hunting them after the tests but, they just don't seem to last long released on their own.

[Special T]

Happy, have you ever thought of giving a jonny house/recall pen a try where you are at? I would imagine the reason they don't do so hot is the coyotes, and hawks in your area. Not to mention the damp...

[Blackjaw]

Whatever you decide to go with, make sure you have a good flight pen. Strong fliers are always in demand. The training group I belong to use pheasant and chukar. I haven't had to buy any for awhile as I am bringing a pup along right now and am just training with feral pigeons at this point, but I can get you a price range on the game birds that others in the group are paying right now if you are interested.

[Happy Gilmore]

Happy, have you ever thought of giving a jonny house/recall pen a try where you are at? I would imagine the reason they don't do so hot is the coyotes, and hawks in your area. Not to mention the damp...

we've thought about it but, honestly, training on the property every day we usually find them in short order. Have a little falcon of some sort picked off a few homers last week. Rather keep them busy with loose chukar. Hurts losing homers.