Early??

[Eric Wettschreck]

Yesterday I saw a hen with some tiny little fuzz balls. I'm no expert but I thought this was a just a little early to be seeing chicks?

[sparcebag]

I'm seeing lot now and if my memory is close saw the first brood 3-4 weeks ago.I see more pheasants here than ducks.

[123fish]

I think around June 7 is the average time for pheasants to start to hatch. So they are going to be on either side of that. Talked to a guy Friday who saw some in the Mankato area that were the size of meadowlarks already.

[lawdog]

with all the rain predicted this week I hope not TOO many have been hatched yet. maybe it will come in small doses and we'll be OK. it does look like it at least won't be freezing cold too...

[Eric Wettschreck]

Jeff, I thought the same thing.

Maybe I'm just weird but I thought this was a tad bit early to be seeing little fuzz balls.

[123fish]

Early or late I bet the nests and young ones took a hit on Thursday with the flooding we had. It was not a good day to be a young or unborn pheasant.

[Eric Wettschreck]

No kiddin there. Heck, my nest flooded pretty good. I can only imagine what happened to the pheasant nests.

[PerchPounder]

I was thinking it may be just a bit early but maybe not. The ones that do survive the wet spring will definitely have enough food as long as the farmers don't start spraying for the insects.

[Dotch]

I don't know what they'd be spraying there perch pounder but across southern MN, they're not spraying insecticide, except perhaps the odd corn rootworm refuge acreage where they did not have rootworm insecticide on the planter, an extremely small percentage of the acres. Soybean aphids are a late July-early August issue but certainly no "gimme" as far as needing control every year and corn borer has largely been taken care of by the planting of Bt hybrids. Their numbers given the spring thus far are likely to be low on those refuge acres. Most alfalfa remains standing at this point with very little drying weather to make dry hay or even haylage for that matter. Spraying for potato leafhopper in alfalfa likely won't come until July and that's if numbers are high enough to warrant it. In all crops, even though prices for commodities are high, input costs are rising as well so spraying insecticide for the fun of it is very unlikely.

Pheasants are doing well here so far. Plenty of insects, earthworms and leftover corn in area no-till soybean fields to make for a pheasant smorgasbord. Sure it's wet and wouldn't hurt if it dried up awhile but SC MN has been spared the multiple-inch drenchings common to our west and south in IA. There have been several batches of fuzzballs noted near home and am always on full alert when seeing a hen cross the road as there are frequently fuzzy little followers zipping along behind her this time of year.