Nesting/Breeding

[BDR]

I like to get my dog out running in areas that have wild pheasant in the off season when they are not nesting. My question is when does breeding take place and how dissruptive can this be? I do take into consideration winter stress and change locations each time out(1 x week). What do some of you think of the ethics with doing this?I see it as some free training and exercise for dog and me.

[Surface Tension]

By all means go afield and do some dog work. But not during nesting season. In fact its illegal to do so. I dont know the dates off hand but their in the regulations.

[setterguy]

The dates are April 16th to July 14th, I would give it a week before and a week after just to be sure not to disturb any of the process. Additionally there are places around that you can train on year round with a special permit. These places allow you to plant your own birds thre for training.

[WaveWacker]

There could be some pheasants that have a hard time flying up into the latter part of August (late hatch) depending on the spring nesting conditions. If you are talking about running your dog on a WMA etc. I would imaging that there are going to be some people that are going to be p.o.'ed at the sight of someone running a dog on it. I like your idea of rotating the locations. I would however not run the entire area. Maybe just touch on a couple of edges.