Gamebirds

The birds bred in Italy for hunting are all galliformes and belong to the tetraonidae (francolins) and the phasianidae (pheasants, grey partridges, red-legged partridges and quails) families. The estimated national requirement of game birds for hunting purposes is:

1. Pheasants: 5,500,000 of which 500,000 are imported;
2. Grey partridges: 700,000 of which 400,000 are imported;
3. Red-legged partridges: 70,000.

These birds are bred in over 2,000 farms, 90% of which are located in the north of Italy.
As concerns game to be dressed for market, approximately 24 million quails are slaughtered every year in Italy along with 20,000 pheasants, the latter particularly for the Christmas festivities.

BREEDING GUIDELINES

Pheasants, the most common species, are mainly bred in closed-loop farms.
The farm nearly always has the breeders for providing eggs, and therefore hatchlings.
The breeding of all hunting game is seasonal.
Young pheasants are made to hatch from April to July and become adult birds at the age of 5 months.
The breeding process consists of three steps:
- Weaning (from 1 to 30 days approximately) in the shed;
- Acclimatization (from 30 to 60 days) when the young pheasants are allowed to access aviaries outside the shed;
- Breeding in aviary (over 60 days), when the birds live nearly in the open in aviaries provided with plenty of vegetation.
For other species, (grey and red-legged partridges), the first two steps of the breeding system are very similar but the birds stay for less time in the aviary because they are more precocious.
Hunting pheasants are released as follows:

• Reintroduction in July with former breeders and young pheasants aged 70 to 100 days;
• Hunting game from September to January with pheasants aged 130 to 170 days;
• Reintroduction at the end of the hunting season in February.

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