pheasant habitat

[BobT]

I wouldn't mind finding some information about planting or managing small parcels of land for pheasant. I'm not looking to devote my life to this venture but I am interested in knowing what types of grassland cover is preferred, burning practices, etc. I already have pheasants that use my property so maybe what I have already is adequate but I wouldn't mind helping them out a little more on land that I don't put to plow now.

Anyone have any links or suggestions that may help me. I am a PF member but it seems most of the information I read in the mag. relates to much larger plots of land and surprisingly the mag. doesn't provide this information unless you want to buy it and/or hire PF biologists and such to help you out. I'm not financially ready to devote that heavily to this venture. I'm talking more low scale here.

[Jameson]

http://www.dnr.state.mi.us/publications/...t/Pheasants.htm

[pureinsanity]

From the PF HSOforum

Food Plots:

Locate them next to heavy winter cover and other shelter (shelterbelts, cattail sloughs, etc)

If there is no winter cover available, food plots must be large enough (4-15 acres) to provide significant cover in addition to being a source for food

Grain-based Food Plots

High energy, grain-based food plots (including corn, sorghum, millets, etc.) are an essential wildlife management practice for game birds and other wildlife on private lands. Regardless of winter severity, it makes good sense to provide additional food and cover for crisis situations, to use food plots to increase habitat diversity, and to create habitat for hunting and wildlife viewing. Where primary winter cover is limited, planting grain-based mixes (like sorghums) will provide great cover structure in addition to food, and creating larger plots will improve shelter for your birds. That will help you achieve your primary objective—to bring your hens through the winter in peak condition for breeding, where improved spring body weight helps maximize chick production.

Browse Mixes

The Bird and Buck Line of green browse mixes from Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever provide forage that will help attract big game to your farm and that, in some cases, can also provide high quality brood habitat for upland birds. These mixes are a magnet for wildlife and will attract whitetails and other species to your property and hold them there. PF/QF browse mixes are comprised of specially developed protein and energy rich forage that deer and turkey find irresistible. In addition, Bird and Buck forage mixes create a leafy, insect rich structure that is important for game bird chicks

Winter Cover:

Shelterbelts & Windbreak Basics

Farmstead shelterbelts have long been a feature of the Midwestern landscape; sheltering wildlife, livestock and farmsteads from winter’s harsh grip. A well-designed shelterbelt provides loafing, feeding, roosting and escape cover for ring-necked pheasants and other wildlife.

The basic steps for a successful shelterbelt project are: selection and ordering planting stock, proper preparation of planting site, suitable planting techniques, and proper care after planting.

Shelterbelts should be designed to contain 10 or more rows of trees and shrubs primarily on the north and west sides of farmsteads, and for maximum protection should be at least 150 feet wide. The shrubs are planted in the outermost rows to catch drifting snow, while the tall, center deciduous trees "lift" the chilling winds above the farmstead. Evergreens are on the inside four rows and effectively reduce the remaining wind and drifting snow. Field windbreaks are often much smaller in scale and contain 2 to 4 rows of smaller shrubs planted outside two (2) rows of evergreens.

Nesting Cover:

Three Keys for Good Nesting Cover:

It should contain several species of grasses and forbs

There should be no disturbance (i.e. mowing, dog training, etc.) during nesting season: April 15 – July 15

Nesting cover is dynamic, so plan ahead to manage grass cover successfully in successive years. Planning ahead to manage for diversity is likely the best thing you can do for pheasants in your area

Increase nesting success by implementing buffers on the landscape. These "travel links" along cropland edges, stream or riparian corridors, field borders, and grass waterways protect water quality while providing nesting areas between fragmented agricultural habitats. Wider is better – nesting success for pheasants increases measurably or every 1-foot increase in strip width.

Not Sure About the Quality of Your Nesting Cover?

Ideal pheasant cover is relatively easy to define

Conduct this simple field exercise in mid-April to test the adequacy of your nest cover: Throw a football 20 feet into the field. If it disappears and there are several species of grasses and forbs, you likely have adequate cover. Pheasants live out their lives within a home range of approximately one square mile, requiring all habitat components - nesting cover, brood habitat, winter cover and food - to be in close proximity.

Ideally, 30-60 acres (about 5-10 percent) of this range should be nesting cover. That may sound like a lot but every bit of undisturbed grass cover helps, roadsides, waterways, center pivot corners, fencelines all offer pheasant nesting opportunities.

Brood Habitat:

Brood Rearing

For the first month to six weeks of their lives, pheasant chicks feed almost entirely on insects.

For the first month to six weeks of their lives, pheasant chicks feed almost entirely on insects.

Brood habitat can have a very significant effect on pheasant populations. In fact, recent research is showing chick survival – highly dependent on brood rearing habitat – is one of the most influential factors relating to pheasant population increases and decreases.

The Need for Brood Habitat

When chicks emerge from the eggs, there is a high demand for protein-rich food, specifically in the form of insects. Broods only move far enough to satisfy their needs - the shorter the distance, the better. And, home ranges can be pretty small if cover quality is high. Movements of just 1-4 acres per day in the first weeks of life characterize the limited travels of broods in good cover.

Broods, Biomass and Bug Power

Insects are the fuel chicks need to grow. Chicks feed on bugs almost exclusively their first 4-6 weeks, feeding constantly throughout each day. Insects continue to be an important, albeit smaller, component of the diet through 14 weeks. Soft-bodied insects, including leafhoppers and larval stages of moths and grasshoppers, make up a large part of the diet. The management challenge with brood habitat is to provide the very best cover possible for those insects, so that more of them are produced for brood food. Chicks consume from 1,000 to 2,700 milligrams of bugs per day, so they need cover that produces a high insect biomass, such as oats and sweet clover as opposed to corn and beans. Pheasant broods forced to range over larger areas have reduced survival rates. Single species stands of native (eg. Switch grass) or cool-season grasses (eg. Brome grass) are also poor producers of insects. Adding forbs (broad leafed annuals or perennials) to these grasses increases diversity and insects.

Quality Brood Cover

Diverse nesting cover can also make fair brood cover, but there are specific differences between the two.

Diverse nesting cover can also make fair brood cover, but there are specific differences between the two.

Pheasant broods on the hunt for food have certain considerations. Broods need good lateral and overhead concealment from predation, since they are being hunted themselves by most everything with teeth and talons. In fact, from a hatch of a dozen chicks, only six will survive until October. Broods also require openness at ground level to feed freely throughout the stand (and to escape should trouble show up). Fields choked with the litter of dead vegetation from years of neglect will not see much use by broods. And, as talked about previously, brood cover must be comprised of vegetation attractive to their insect quarry.

Good nesting cover can be great brood habitat, as well, but generally not without some thought. Early-successional areas, characterized by open stands with a high diversity of grasses and succulent broadleaved plants, fit the requirements for both nesting and brood rearing. Well-designed habitat for both nesting and broods will pair diverse forbs (broadleaves) with several species of either warm or cool-season grasses (or both) that will provide more cover variety. Broods are often found at the junction of these native and cool season habitats. These complexes of plants also provide habitat for nesting, night roosting, daytime loafing and escape cover.

The value of cover for broods and nesting declines significantly as the stand ages. If you have your own plantings, diversify them and create a plan for regular disturbance (disking, grazing, haying, burning, etc.) that rejuvenates the cover. Rotationally managing a third of the field annually provides much better wildlife habitat overall.

[B. Amish]

bob,

i don't know what your tillage practices are like. but, if you grow small grain, consider no tillage in the fall especially on south slopes and hill tops that will be free from snow and the leftover grain is available to eat.

consider removing hawk perches. if you have a lone tall tree, it would be a good candidate for firewood in my book.

adding forbs to a grass landscape increases insect diversity and thus increases chick survival. most of what they eat as youngsters is insects. so, if you are redoing a crp contract where you have to reseed or starting a new one, consider planting lots of forbs.

[Dotch]

Bob,

In the last county FSA/USDA newsletter I received there was a paragraph about Continous CRP. You probably get the same stuff I get but you can go online for details at:

http://www.fsa.usda.gov/pas/publications/facts/html/crpcont03.htm

Another place I usually make a stop is the SWCD to see what they might have cooking. They know I don't have a large acreage but are usually more than happy to give me some ideas about how to go about some smaller things with the pheasants and other wildlife in mind. Last year we did a small planting (EQIP $ I think) to connect the CRP with our windbreak and yard. While it doesn't follow the 10 row schematic that PF suggests it is roughly a 225' corridor to allow movement of birds to the windbreak and our yard when the weather turns ugly. It consists of a row of Freedom honeysuckle, 2 rows of arborvitae and one row on the inside of American cranberry. Out of pocket cost was a couple hundred bucks for the trees. When barn cleaning a week ago, that's where 2 roosters were camping as I drove by with the spreader. Despite the dry weather, the planting looks great. The SWCD also recently came up with some grant $ to clean up the willows and other garbage trees that were encroaching on our restored wetland. This grant will also cover the cost of burning the native prairie next spring. It was 100% cost share so I owe nothing. The price was right anyway and it is done professionally. Never hurts to check them out here as I'm not out anything by talking to them. And, it makes a great place to hide when I'm trying to get out of doing some honeydew projects.

Good luck Bob!

[Tom7227]

Bob,

You seem to have a pretty good grasp of many subjects but trying to figure out what has the most bang for the bucks in terms of wildlife can get pretty specific as to location, and most importantly that most forget is the location in relation to what else is around. Having either a food plot or a shelter belt where the other isn't close by sort of defeats the purpose of both.

My wife is the Director of Membership at PF and so over the years I've gotten to know how they work and a lot of the people. I urge you to contact any one of the folks who are near you from this page:

http://www.pheasantsforever.org/page/fieldstaff.jsp#habitat The habitat guys are sort of in business to actually design projects, see if resources can be added to the mix, and then do the job. The farm bill biologists are there to help as well but don't go out and do the burns etc.

I don't own land but I have spent a lot of time trying to learn about what to do when and where. It gets so incredibly complicated I frankly don't know if the sod goes down green side up or down after I try to make sense out of things.

One of those guys can zero in on your land, learn soil types, crop types, moisture, surrounding areas etc. They offer that service for free at Pheasant Fest but it is in Kansas City this year Feb 17 to 19. Long drive for you but maybe you need a vacation.

Write me a PM if you need more help on this.

[BobT]

Thanks for all the information.

[harvey lee]

Thanks BobT for trying to help out the wildlife to any degree. With the coming loss of CRP, anything one does will or should benefit the wildlife. So many talk about these type set asides but few realy go ahead with it.

Any food plot or area with habitat really helps out all the wildlfe in your and any area.

[BobT]

Quote:

i don't know what your tillage practices are like. but, if you grow small grain, consider no tillage in the fall especially on south slopes and hill tops that will be free from snow and the leftover grain is available to eat.

That's a great suggestion and I would love to be able to do that but I'll share my experience with you.

When I first moved here my neighbor rented my ground. After two summers he informed me that he felt he was over-extended a little too much and wanted to cut back on the amount of ground he was farming. So I decided I would try farming it myself and thus began my farming life. He had about 30 acres of clover on my property that he only harvested one year. I asked him if he would consider keeping his clover for one more year so I could step into my farming a little slower and he agreed. He harvested the clover seed so that following year he swathed and combined the clover. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions, he was only able to harvest about half his clover in the fall. As it was late in the year I was almost following him with my mold board plow so I managed to till what he finished. The rest was left until spring. The following spring after he finished harvesting his seed, I finished tilling the ground.

What I learned as it was later explained to me, is that farming this far north in this heavy clay ground does not work well with spring tillage. The first problem is that tilling in the fall turns the black soil on top and this helps absorb sun in the spring and accelerate the thawing process making it easier to get into the fields earlier, which is important with the shorter growing season we have. Tilling in the spring usually means late planting, which is not very good.

The second problem is that tilling in the fall allows the frost to work on the clumps of soil so that in the spring when I go over the land with my digger and multi-weeder the soil breaks apart and creates a nicely sealed seed bed, trapping the moisture close to the surface where the seed will be placed. Spring tillage leaves the soil more lumpy and aerated resulting in too much drying. The result is late and poor germination. If by chance we get prompt rain, it may help to some degree but it is still not very good.

When I harvested the wheat I sowed that fall, I could easily see that the area I tilled in the spring produced about a 30% lower yield than the area that was tilled the previous fall. That much lower yield and farming is a losing proposition.

I have since began to employ less intrusive chisel plowing practices on my bean ground, and this year I am experimenting with chisel plowing my wheat ground. Not sure how that will work out. I could see that wheat stubble doesn't chisel quite as black as bean ground and I suspect it is because the wheat is harvested earlier in the fall and this leaves time for grasses and wheat to regrow, making the ground more green so it doesn't stir up as nice. But we'll see how it goes. If it works, it'll save me a lot of time, fuel, and leave more trash on the surface, which benefits wildlife and erosion potential.

You see, we farmers aren't all about the dollar. Contrary to what appears to be popular belief among sportsmen and women, some of what we do is motivated by conservation of soil, water, and wildlife. If we have any vision at all toward future farming, we must consider conservation. Granted, our thoughts are not aimed at making a wildlife meca for B. Amish or anyone else in particular but we all benefit in the long run if we farmers employ good farming practices, use common sense, and use our heads. It's a learning curve and I'm sure I have plenty to learn yet.

[B. Amish]

ok then, thanks for the lecture?

[LandDr]

Provide me with the County, Twp, Range and section number and I will email you back a photo of the section to confirm the property location. Once confirmed, I will look at what options you have, map it out and email it back to you. From there you can start applying for the different options. I can do this pretty fast and no cost. habitatnow dot com

Land Dr