Partridge - is quite common in our latitudes bird of the pheasant family, relative of the chicken, possessing a very tender and tasty meat. However, not everyone knows that you can get such a game not only as a hunting trophy. Partridges have long been domesticated and can be successfully grown as agricultural poultry. About how to breed partridges at home, and will be discussed below.
For what partridges are bred at home
The main reason for breeding this variety of pheasant is the exceptional taste of meat. However, the eggs of this bird are of no less interest. 
They have a truly unique composition of vitamins, and potassium, iron and phosphorus in this product are much more than in our usual chicken eggs.
Important! Unlike quail eggs, which, as you know, can be safely eaten raw, quail eggs, even home grown, must be cooked, because salmonellosis (also called “raw egg disease”) can affect this bird, and, accordingly, fall into its eggs.
Until recently, the eggs of partridges were almost impossible to obtain, and even today they are rarely found in retail chains. Being about three times smaller in weight by chicken, it costs a dozen of such eggs at least four times more expensive. 
If we talk about meat, then compared to chicken, depending on the region, the price in some cases may differ by an order of magnitude (10 times) and even more. Breeding such a bird at home is troublesome, but very profitable.
At home, you can also grow interesting breeds of chickens, among them: Chickens Sussex, Wyandot, Black Bearded Chickens, Faverol, Adler Silver, Rhode Island, Poltava, Minorca, Andalusian Blue, Orpington, Kuchinsky Jubilee, Chickens Leggorn, Cochinchins , Brama and Zagorsky salmon.
Where to start
Of course, any business requires careful preparation. It is important not only to know what a partridge looks like and what it is eaten with, but to study in detail what partridges eat, what conditions are optimal for them and how to create such conditions in their own henhouse. 
So, the first thing that is advised to keep in mind "kurochatochnye" breeders - a careful protection of the enclosure. The fact is that the bird that you are going to breed has many natural enemies and is a desirable prey for many predators, including birds.
Partridges are much smaller than chickens, the weight of one individual is about 0.4 kg or a little more, so it is not surprising that such a bird may become a victim not only of a fox, a wolf or a stray dog, but even an ordinary crow.
Of course, it is important to study what partridges eat at home, because, as will be discussed below, feed suitable for chickens and other habitual poultry is not suitable here.
Did you know? Surprisingly, the partridge is revered in many countries of the world and even is the official symbol of the federal units of Canada (Nunavut territory), the USA (Alaska) and as many as three administrative units of Japan (Nagano, Gifu and Toyama prefectures). In the land of the rising sun, this bird is called "thunder" and they believe that it protects a person and his house from thunder and fire.
When the conditions are created, the diet is studied, the feed is prepared, a dilemma arises where to get the bird. Experienced breeders caution against two main mistakes: an attempt to tame a feathered bird caught in the wild and acquisition of chicks for divorce (or eggs from which they will hatch). The first option is bad because it is not entirely clear how to get a sex-sex couple on the hunt without harming any of the animals, because, as we understand, this is the minimum necessary for breeding, and it is not known how such birds will live in captivity.
Growing chicks is a painstaking and risky business., you just have to master it in the future, so if you start with such experiments, it is likely to lose the young. As for artificial incubation of eggs, it is generally "aerobatics" in the poultry industry, and not exactly what to start with.
Partridges are grown at home on level with: chickens, ducks, geese.It is also important to determine the type of partridges, which are actually many. It is logical to proceed from where those or other partridges live in natural conditions, choosing the form for which your climatic zone will be the most suitable.
Most often in agriculture, gray ones are used, less often - more exotic for our broad red partridges, on one of these species you should stop your choice if your goal is meat and eggs, and not a home zoo.
Important! It is necessary to acquire several pieces at once, and the number of males and females (as opposed to breeding chickens) should be the same, since the partridges before breeding are divided into pairs. Minimum lot to buy 3-4 pairs.
Do not forget to worry about the legalization of the new business, so that later, when it comes time to sell the products, you will not encounter unexpected problems and fines. 
Conditions of the maintenance of partridges
Our bird lives in nature in the forest, and not in an open area, it is very bad for drafts, but it should not be indoors, too, around the clock.
Therefore, in advance, you need to worry about the presence of a closed house (make sure that all the holes in its walls are thoroughly repaired, the feathery family did not disturb the cold night breeze), as well as the open area for walking birds, well protected from a possible predator attack. In order of each of them. 
Partridges, unlike chickens, fly beautifully, so, firstly, the barn should be quite high (at least 2 m), and secondly, when arranging the house, care must be taken to ensure that the bird is not injured and confused.
Breeders recommend to stretch around the perimeter of the shed and under the ceiling a fine mesh of cotton thread or capron with cells of 1 sq. M. see to prevent bird strikes on hard surfaces.
It is also useful to provide a small corridor at the entrance to the poultry house, so that its feathered inhabitants will not scatter when you enter. 
An important condition is good sound insulation in the barn: these birds are very sensitive to noise. Light should be enough, in the dark, especially in the spring, birds are uncomfortable, they reproduce poorly.
Did you know? Partridges are very shy, and they react to the danger in a very peculiar way - they fall into a stupor and become completely immobile, it may seem that the bird has died. If you take this pretender in your hands, she will not try to break free and will not react at all. But it is worth the danger to pass - the bird "recovers" immediately.
Regarding the size of the house, we must assume that the larger such area, the more birds can be kept per square meter: if there are no more than three birds in a small shed on the meter, then this number is large in large areas can be increased to five. In the room where partridges are kept, in addition to feeding troughs and drinking bowls, boxes with coarse sand or pebbles should be placed in which a little ash can be added.
It is good that such containers have an irregular shape and a ribbed bottom, about which birds can clean their paws. The presence of a small amount of pebbles in the stomach helps all chicken to digest grain food, and bathing in the sand and ashes helps get rid of ticks, small insects that eat feathers, as well as other parasites.
The garden also grows ostriches, guinea fowls, peacocks, quails, and meat pigeons.
An underlay is made from hay or straw, which changes in about a day. The bird walking area must be equipped with a large number of shelters in order to create conditions similar to natural ones for partridges.
For these purposes are used bushes, small trees, hay ricks, etc. It is also important to provide a place where birds can hide in case of unexpected rain, snow or just a gust of wind.
The diet of adult partridges
If you feed a partridge with chicken feed, the bird will suffer from a serious lack of vitamins.
The basis of the diet of this relative of the chicken are cereals, it is better that they are raw oats or crushed corn (you should not boil the grain at all, because it is much better digested by the bird's stomach). 
You can also give wheat, barley, meal (for young stock - sunflower and soy). In order to fill the need of birds for protein food, which they satisfy in the wild by eating insects, fish and meat and bone meal should be added to the diet.
Fodder yeast, fresh greens or grass meal, table salt, crushed chalk or shells are also added to food (can be replaced with regular calcium gluconate, it is sold in a pharmacy and is inexpensive).
Important! Walking a partridge in the fresh air is useful, among other things, because birds will be able to get their own delicacies in the form of various bugs and larvae on their own. You will agree that adding such an additive to an artificial diet is not very easy.
Both deficiency and excess feed in general and its individual elements are equally harmful to birds. Meals should be balanced and sufficient. All components are used only fresh, clean, without the slightest trace of infection, rot or mold. 
You also need to remember that in the summer, the nutritional value of feed should be about 30% higher than in winter.
Breeding and offspring
Procreation - the main point in the breeding of partridges, because for the sake of this, as they say, everything is being started. The sacrament in the form of laying eggs in these birds in the wild begins in the second half of spring, but in a well-organized poultry house (including the mandatory artificial lighting) can last from March to mid-summer. 
If, in natural conditions, a partridge lays up to one and a half dozen eggs, then with artificial breeding this number can be increased four times. A little less than four weeks elapse between laying eggs and the appearance of chicks.
Important! Breeders recommend to select females who laid the greatest number of eggs as layers for the next year, and add the number of young “chickens” in the ratio 4: 6.
For offspring is also important to know some of the habits of these relatives of chickens. The first and most important difference from the usual for us poultry is that partridges during the period of tokanie create families (simply speaking - are divided into pairs), which imposes additional obligations on the breeder. 
Each family must be provided with its own territory both in the aviary and on the range, otherwise fights between males cannot be avoided.
To create a family of birds you need to help: after a while, a male is planted to a female squatted in a separate cage and observe the behavior of the birds. If the pair does not fold (the birds perceive each other with hostility), the male is changed to the next.
A month before the predicted egg-laying period, partridges add vitamins A and E to the feed once in an amount of 60 and 10 mg per individual, respectively, which stimulates the sexual activity of the bird and accelerates the appearance of long-awaited offspring.
Content of chicks
When the chicks finally hatched, they don’t touch their mother or mother for the first day. Then the bird is recommended to move to the "two-room" cage, partitioned so that only kids can move into the second compartment. 
The ideal size of such a room for young stock is one and a half meters per half meter, the length of the walls and about half a meter of their height.
Directly with the cage on a nice day, you can organize young chicks walking in the open air, preferably putting a structure in the middle of low grass. Sun, fresh grass, cleanliness and dryness are the main attributes of healthy offspring.
Important! We can not allow overheating of the cage with chicks: from the harsh sunlight the cage must be removed in the shade.
The young stock is ready for independent walks around the 30th day of life, however, it’s still not worth walking along with adult chicks. By this time, the chicks are almost adults, independent and even begin to fly gradually.
Rules for feeding and caring for the young
The first days after birth, the chicks can be given boiled chicken yolk, mashed into mush, gradually adding to it finely chopped fresh greens - cabbage leaf, dandelion, yarrow, nettle. 
After a few days, you can switch to white bread, and after some time, to lean, boiled meat, chopped into very small pieces.
It is useful to add low-fat and unsalted cottage cheese to the feed, or a quail egg and cow's milk talker.
Water should be given only in the case when the room is too hot, and quite a bit - the chicks should receive the main amount of liquid from feed in which there should be a lot of fresh greens.
Therefore, the drinking bowl for the hen should be organized in such a way that it is not accessible to children. 
During the day, you need to feed the young partridges twice (in the morning and in the evening), as the perennians grow, the volume of food gradually increases.
Partridge - quite unpretentious bird, to grow it as a whole is easy, but very profitable. Carefully study the habits and rules of keeping these birds, then your business will be successful and profitable.
