Pheasant poults for sale: 12 to 16 weeks, ready for your summer releases

Restocking — the method that works

Restocking pheasants for shooting

A restocking pheasant is not a shooting bird released the day before the season opens: it is a young bird put on the ground early enough to learn the terrain, find its own food, roost at night and escape the fox. The whole difference between a release that fills a bag for one morning and a release that leaves crowing cocks the following spring comes down to three decisions: the age of the birds, the release density and the preparation of the ground.Recommended release age: 14 weeks. That is the heart of the 12-16 week window, and the age at which we deliver most of our batches. At 14 weeks the poult is fully feathered, its flight muscles are formed, it flies several dozen metres and roosts — yet it is still young enough to take to its surroundings and go wild. Younger (8 to 10 weeks), it needs a pre-release pen and closer supervision, and pays a heavy price to predation. Older, it keeps its rearing reflexes and disperses more. It is this age class — 14 to 15 weeks — that the Isère poult scheme chose for its 2 312 birds in the summer of 2026.Densities per hectare. The benchmarks commonly used by the federations run from 45 to 90 poults per 100 hectares of suitable ground, roughly one bird per 1 to 2 hectares. The lower end applies to well-managed ground, rich in cover and hedgerows, where the aim is to establish a breeding population; the upper end to open plains short of holding cover, where losses are higher. Do not concentrate everything in one place: batches of 25 to 50 birds per release site, one site every 50 to 100 hectares near cover, a water point and a feeder, give far better results than a single mass release.Timing. Restocking releases take place in summer, from June to August, six to twelve weeks before the season opens — the time the birds need to go wild, disperse naturally and settle into the ground. A release in late August or September is shooting, not restocking. Avoid hot days and release at the end of the afternoon, immediately alongside cover.Preparing the ground before the birds arrive. A restocking pheasant needs three things the moment it touches the ground: somewhere to hide, water and food. Provide game cover crops (maize, sorghum, sunflower, wild bird mixes) over 2 to 3 % of the area, grass margins and hedges to link the holding cover, a clean water point within 200 metres of every release site, feeders installed and already visited before the release, and sustained control of foxes, mustelids and corvids in the preceding weeks. The pre-release pen — a few days on site, under shelter — sharply reduces mortality and dispersal in the first days. The full step-by-step method is in our guide to achieving a successful release, and the feeding side on our feeding and habitat management page. As for paperwork, introducing game into the wild is regulated: see our small game regulations page. And if you are hesitating between our strains, the guide to choosing your pheasant strain compares flight, hardiness and use; the classic strain is detailed on the common pheasant page.

Our husbandry choices

What we have been doing day in, day out since 1951: producing restocking birds that survive in the field. Our exclusive strain, at the heart of these choices, has a page of its own: FAISAN PUR CHASSE®.