Biological features and meat productivity of young pheasants during intensive rearing

Abstract

In pheasant breeding, the influence of the method of housing on the meat productivity of the livestock has not been sufficiently studied yet, and the reserves of the young pheasants’ growth potential during crossbreeding have been little utilized. At the same time, it is necessary to clearly determine the influence of sexual dimorphism of pheasants on meat productivity parameters in order to effectively improve the technology of rearing meat pheasants for increased weight categories. The purpose of the work was to study the biological characteristics and parameters of meat productivity of young pheasants during intensive rearing. The increase in meat productivity of pheasants by crossbreeding F1 (♂ Romanian pheasant × ♀ hunting pheasant) against the background of optimizing the conditions for housing crossbred young animals and using a new feeding system based on the predominant use of corn grain with phase changes in the concentration of energy and protein in compound feed was studied in the work. When developing a new technological scheme for the intensive rearing of pheasants for meat up to increased weight categories, the feeding preferences of the birds, the infl uence of sexual dimorphism, blood parameters and features of the histological structure of muscle tissue were taken into account. It has been established that in order to increase the production of high-quality pheasant meat, it is necessary to intensively raise crossbred F1 cockerels (♂ Romanian × ♀ hunting pheasant) in an open-air cage (0,4 m2/head) and the use of compound feed with a constantly high specifi c gravity of crude protein (up to 25 %) and corn grain component (50–55 % by weight of the compound feed), which makes it possible to obtain increased weight categories of meat pheasant at the age of 16 weeks such as live weight of young animals 1551,2±25,09 g, and gutted carcass weight 1228,3±11,85 g.