Catching a skittish pheasant isn't easy for most people.

You have to hunch over while holding a metal-handled net in front of you and scuttle behind the bird until you get a chance to reach out and -- wham! -- bring the net down over its head.

Bob Monheim does it pretty easily.

When he took off after a long-tailed pheasant cock at his farm one day, he had the flopping fowl calmed and transferred from the net to his arms in minutes.

He has had lots of practice.

Mr. Monheim and his sister, Patricia Monheim, own an 80-acre farm in Parks, Armstrong County, where he keeps a brood of about 100 pheasants, a bevy of bobwhite quail, 60 turkeys, 28 white-tail deer and a couple each of peacocks, ostriches and ruffed grouse.

He started raising the animals in 1998 and has developed a business which he says supplies up to 800 pheasants and nearly 200 turkeys a year to local breeders, game hunters and wild pet enthusiasts.

To operate, Mr. Monheim had to get a propagating permit from the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The permit is an annual license, costing $25 for the first animal species and $10 for each additional.

Todd Stuller, 30, of Loyalhanna, Westmoreland County, said he bought three poults -- immature turkeys -- and seven pheasant chicks a year ago from Mr. Monheim. Now they are the full-grown parents of two turkey hatchlings and 11 turkey and 18 pheasant eggs.

Mr. Stuller said he came up with the idea of raising the birds as a fun project to do with his daughter, Nicole, 6. And, while he's no farmer -- Mr. Stuller is a laborer in a quarry -- raising the poultry has been easy.

"I've spent a lot of time at Bob's," he said. "I buy all my feed from Bob. Anything he knew he would tell me. He was glad to help."

A former sheet-metal worker at a Pennsylvania power station, Mr. Monheim left his job in 1992 after he was injured at work. He inhaled noxious fumes that billowed up near him. The gases scarred his lungs and permanently damaged his brain, he said.

He had to learn to walk again and to find a new line of work, he said. The kind of sustained physical work he did before the accident could trigger a stroke-like shutdown of his brain.

"I went through a lot," he said. "But I came through it. I'm all right now."

The farm and the animals have given him a new direction and purpose, he said.

Mr. Monheim raises eight species of turkeys: Rio Grande from the Southwest; Pennsylvania's own wild version; the grayish Blue Slate turkey, which originated in South America; Spanish black; the majestic black and white Royal Palm; Narraganset, of Massachusetts; Belville, a small white turkey; and Bourbon Red.

Mr. Monheim's pheasants are typical ring-necks. A couple of them, like the one he caught in the net, have tails as long as two feet.

Although the tail can be broken off, he said, its length is what gives the pheasant value, and the more black bars across the width of the long tail feathers, the better.

"We average from 25 to 34 bars," he said.

At Mr. Monheim's, a hunter buying a stock of pheasants might spend a little more than $100 for a dozen. Turkeys go for $15 to $25 each.

The white-tail deer are a bit more dear. A female fawn can cost about $2,000, and a young buck can run more than $5,000, Mr. Monheim said. He began herding white-tail in 1999.

He keeps the deer separate from the fowl in a fenced meadow, where they can romp and chomp on dandelions.

One of his bucks, John Deere, is 18 months old and stands waist high. He has nubs for antlers, but by fall, he probably will develop a 12- to 15-point rack.

"If this were rutting season, we wouldn't be able to stand here like this," Mr. Monheim said as he smoothed his hand over the deer's head and neck.

For deer, the rutting, or mating, season comes in September. That's when male deer fight each other for the opportunity to couple with females. Deer begin mating at 8 months and can live for more than a decade.

John Deere, Mr. Monheim's prize stag, has a storied family tree.

"John Deere's bloodline is out of Goliath," Mr. Monheim said, referring to a 375-pound, 50-point buck that had been owned by a Clarion County couple.

Goliath was missing for several years, but was returned to his home farm in 2003. He died in 2004.