Poultry: A Bird with An Attitude

Pheasant under glass seems an unlikely entree to gain popularity during the frugal 1990s. But Henry Saglio, the owner of Connecticut's Grayledge-Avian Farms, wants to make pheasant more proletarian. Back in the 1940s, Saglio's Arbor Acres farm raised some of the first of the meatier and cheaper white chickens that became a diet staple. For the past five years, he has been perfecting a broad-breasted breed of pheasant that is meatier and more tender than its wild brethren in the hope of popularizing that fowl.

While pheasant may lend itself to more exotic and flavorful culinary adventures than chicken does, it also costs a lot more: about $4 per lb., vs. $1.25. Saglio hopes to cut the price by boosting efficiency and raising larger numbers. Last fall he shipped about 25,000 birds, many of which ended up as holiday dinners. The main difficulty in raising pheasants, he says, is their individualistic nature and their tendency to attack one another.