The hatch is happening in NW IA and replanting plots.

remy3424

remy3424

Well-known member
I saw chicks yesterday and today in different places.
My food plots are a disaster as the birds are eating the the seeds from the ground, corn and sorghum. I replanted for the last time today. A week ago I started spreading shelled corn inside a hedgerow about a quarter mile long that is beside one of the good plots, I am thinking with easy food, maybe the last planting might have a chance. I planted most of the plots twice and about half 3 times. Now I would like one more nice rain to get this last planting going. I could see a few sorghum plants from the second planting, but not a lot. No corn from the first planting in the plots I replanted today, but those were already gone when I did the 2nd replant. They are make this much harder than it should be. I think this farm is at or over the maximum pheasant carrying capacity.
 
remy3424 said:
I saw chicks yesterday and today in different places.
My food plots are a disaster as the birds are eating the the seeds from the ground, corn and sorghum. I replanted for the last time today. A week ago I started spreading shelled corn inside a hedgerow about a quarter mile long that is beside one of the good plots, I am thinking with easy food, maybe the last planting might have a chance. I planted most of the plots twice and about half 3 times. Now I would like one more nice rain to get this last planting going. I could see a few sorghum plants from the second planting, but not a lot. No corn from the first planting in the plots I replanted today, but those were already gone when I did the 2nd replant. They are make this much harder than it should be. I think this farm is at or over the maximum pheasant carrying capacity.
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Wow, how big an area are you talking about ? My dad’s tales of killing pheasants in the corn fields have some basis then ?
 
I'm not far from NW Iowa so the bird hatch will be soon here too. Rain would be welcomed, just not a flood.
 
McFarmer said:
Wow, how big an area are you talking about ? My dad’s tales of killing pheasants in the corn fields have some basis then ?
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I have about 6 acres on that farm, I only did the 3rd replant on about 3 acres. I had an old boy in the nursing home tell me that back in the 30s, the county gave the farms shotgun shells to shoot the pheasants as they were so thick they would dig up the corn seed....kind of what I am experiencing on a very localized level now.
 
remy3424 said:
I have about 6 acres on that farm, I only did the 3rd replant on about 3 acres. I had an old boy in the nursing home tell me that back in the 30s, the county gave the farms shotgun shells to shoot the pheasants as they were so thick they would dig up the corn seed....kind of what I am experiencing on a very localized level now.
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Dad talked about going out with cars at night and clubbing them for the same reason.
 
remy3424 said:
I have about 6 acres on that farm, I only did the 3rd replant on about 3 acres. I had an old boy in the nursing home tell me that back in the 30s, the county gave the farms shotgun shells to shoot the pheasants as they were so thick they would dig up the corn seed....kind of what I am experiencing on a very localized level now.
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I wonder if you spread the corn on the planted area if they would pick that instead of digging ? Do you plant purchased seed corn or just plant field corn ? I think if I was to do a plot I would just plant bin corn. Unless of course you need GMO for weed control, then you can’t, legally anyway.

I have seen them pull up four inch corn and then eat the seed. Maybe they like the treatment.

I haven’t seen any hatched here, have seen some ducks.
 
Seed corn, maybe they smell the seed treatment, as I have seen where they dig seed out right after planting and I see where they dig the plant up, eat the seed and leave the plant laying there.
The only thing I am certain of, is that a record number of roosters will be harvested from this farm in less than 5 months.
 
Hogs do it to our corn….You can throw dry corn out and they will walk past it to root up the planted stuff as it germinates. Lactating sows the worst. I reckon the big draw is the enzymatic conversion of starches to sugars pre pop that draws them.
So to keep them from rooting up 300 yards of rows every night, I get a couple of sacks of dry corn, soak it overnight, pour the water off, let it sit in the sun all day, and put the tub in the path from cover to field…this starts the starch to sugar. I let the hogs find and eat it one night, do it again the next night and shoot as many as I can.
On the pheasants, maybe just feed this mix somewhere….out of the way until you get stuff up
 
UplandJim said:
Hogs do it to our corn….You can throw dry corn out and they will walk past it to root up the planted stuff as it germinates. Lactating sows the worst. I reckon the big draw is the enzymatic conversion of starches to sugars pre pop that draws them.
So to keep them from rooting up 300 yards of rows every night, I get a couple of sacks of dry corn, soak it overnight, pour the water off, let it sit in the sun all day, and put the tub in the path from cover to field…this starts the starch to sugar. I let the hogs find and eat it one night, do it again the next night and shoot as many as I can.
On the pheasants, maybe just feed this mix somewhere….out of the way until you get stuff up
Click to expand...
Be careful, like granny said, “Razorbacks are a mean drunk.”

 
remy3424 said:
I saw chicks yesterday and today in different places.
My food plots are a disaster as the birds are eating the the seeds from the ground, corn and sorghum. I replanted for the last time today. A week ago I started spreading shelled corn inside a hedgerow about a quarter mile long that is beside one of the good plots, I am thinking with easy food, maybe the last planting might have a chance. I planted most of the plots twice and about half 3 times. Now I would like one more nice rain to get this last planting going. I could see a few sorghum plants from the second planting, but not a lot. No corn from the first planting in the plots I replanted today, but those were already gone when I did the 2nd replant. They are make this much harder than it should be. I think this farm is at or over the maximum pheasant carrying capacity.
Click to expand...
From the sounds of it, there is probably one thing our farm will have better than yours this year, and that is the food plots. Those look great. Have not seen many birds around to use them - hopefully they are out there!
 
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