Can you feed ordinary poultry layers pellets to pheasants?
A reader asks
If you only keep a few pheasants, you don't have to buy expensive breeder pellets
Q: Can you feed ordinary poultry layers pellets to pheasants? Will they still lay and hatch the same? We only have a few and don’t really know where to get hold of the proper pheasant layers pellets and can buy the poultry ones locally.
A: You can. There is a difference between the two, but it isn’t huge. If you were doing things on a larger scale it would pay you to buy the pheasant breeder pellets, but for a small number of birds the poultry layers pellets will be fine. The birds will lay the same number of eggs, the hatch rate will be similar and the chick quality unchanged. Another option might be to contact a local gamefarm or keeper who has a laying pen and buy a few bags directly from them, though I appreciate buying the layers pellets from a farm store will be easier.
