North Dakota Pheasant and Turkey Farms are a Feather in the Poultry Industry’s Cap

In partnership with: North Dakota Department of Agriculture

North Dakota raises an array of fowl, bringing farm fresh poultry from pasture to plate. In the heart of the state, two farms are well-known for the North Dakota pheasants and turkeys they raise. Learn how these farmers work to ensure flock health and maintain the food chain.

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Pheasant Perfection

Swenson Gamebirds, founded by Brad Swenson 25 years ago in Fort Ransom, is one of the largest pheasant hatcheries in North Dakota. The company supplies chicks and adult birds mainly for hunting operations in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Swenson started the company mostly by chance while raising game birds as a side hobby.

“It was for my own birds, for dog training and things like that,” Swenson explains. “Then someone asked me if I would raise some for them, and pretty soon, it got to be a full-time job.”

Swenson Gamebirds keeps its hens over winter so they’ll lay eggs in the spring. The birds are tended the same as normal until about a month before laying when they are switched to a higher protein feed with more vitamins and minerals. They start laying eggs in March after they’ve been moved into the barns. Then, those eggs are collected and prepped for hatching. In a three-month span, Swenson Gamebirds hatch about 8,000 chicks weekly.

“Our first hatch is usually early April,” says Brent Hebl, co-owner. “Every week, we just keep collecting eggs, and we’ll hatch once a week until early July.”

With seven different barns on the farm, the chicks have plenty of room for growing. They’re raised inside up to about 7 weeks and turned out to large outdoor flight pens after that. The birds are raised all the way to maturity, which is 22 weeks, and sold live, never processed.

“Outfitters or wildlife clubs buy them to help natural bird numbers,” Hebl says. “We also get farmers or people who want a few extra birds around their land.”

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Word-of-mouth marketing has been the company’s best strategy since a lot of outfitters know each other and discuss suppliers for North Dakota pheasants.

“We supply birds to one outfitter, and they compare notes of who they’re getting their birds from,” Swenson says. “Generally, if they try our birds, they like them.”

Swenson and Hebl enjoy working to grow the farm. Since Hebl joined the team in recent years, they’ve added another barn and more pens, and in 2024, they built the company’s first website, swensongamebirds.com.

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Turkey Talk

Further south in Wyndmere, third-generation turkey farmer Sharlene Wittenburg, along with her husband and son, runs Carlwittco Inc., a family-operated farm raising more than 100,000 turkeys annually.

“Our farm consists of two brooder barns, which we start the little birds in,” Wittenburg says. “We also have three grow-up barns they’re transferred to when they’re old enough.”

Wittenburg explains the farm’s diversified stock falls into three different categories based on how they are raised or fed. The conventional birds receive feed that includes meat, bone and animal fats. The NAE, or No Antibiotics Ever, turkey feed includes vegetable oils and no meat bone. Lastly, the organic group requires everything the birds touch to be organic. This is a growing category for the farm.

What’s really important is how the birds are treated. As growers, Wittenburg and her team do everything they can to support the health and safety of their birds, including making sure they are not overcrowded.

The farm is also GAP-certified (Global Animal Partnership), ensuring humane treatment of the animals they raise.

“Everything is done humanely,” Wittenburg says. “We follow GAP guidelines, comingling them with organic guidelines.”

After carefully raising the turkeys to the desired weight, light hens at 13 weeks and heavy hens at 17 weeks, the turkeys are taken to a processing facility and eventually end up on consumers’ tables.

The turkey industry has faced challenges of market instability and diseases such as highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, and avian pneumovirus. Despite those challenges, Wittenburg remains hopeful about the future.

“Our farm has been clean of HPAI and pneumovirus,” she says. “We can keep moving forward. With new technology, our jobs are easier. We’re always trying to improve.”

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