April sees above average rains

UGUIDE

UGUIDE

Active member
Average for Lake Andes is 3.14 and rainfall received is 4.8. Good for farmers and ducks but not good for pheasants. looks like moisture has returned to the forecasts and the drought is over.

Let's hope the temps are up in May and rainfall goes back to average. just looking at the 10 day forecast, low and high temps are trending above average for the whole period.

I think rest of state saw as much if not more rain than Lake Andes.
 
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So far so good

My sources around the Platte area say it's not to wet and they ae seeing LOTS and LOTS of birds. In fact one says it looks to him like a banner year is a real possibility if things go right and he should know as he has been farming the same land since 1941.:thumbsup:

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SDJIM, that sounds good. One other piece of data I noticed by looking at the USDA farming reports is that this time last year soil temps were 40 degrees and they have been 50 degrees for a while now this year. Last year growing degree days was -60 and this year they are 60+.
 
I just talke to my cousin who was in school in brookings, headed west yesterday morning to go back to wash state and he was all excited in the sheer number of birds he saw along the highway all morning long. He said there was a ton of birds. I'm in nebraska right now and have also seen and heard alot of birds the last 2 weeks and this is only about 10 minutes outside of lincoln.....hopefully it turns into a good year. lets keep the fingers crossed. I have tried to help out the young birds that will hatch by bagging a few turkeys here as they will kill the chicks. I wish they would manage more for phez than turkeys here!!
 
So far I have not found a nest. When I am checking cattle or fixing fence I will kick up some hens, but so far I have not found a nest. Here the rain has done nothing but help. Chicks need dew and you can't have dew if you don't have humidity. I think it looks real good so far.
 
We're getting back into the wet rainy pattern over here too.:( Our weather forecasts are looking more like something from the Florida everglades .lol

I think the birds will be fine as long as the flooding stay at bay. I know it's still early in the season and God knows a lot can go wrong yet, but I'm still thinking we're going to see a nice jump this year.


Let's keep our fingers crossed;)
 
Got a report today from the Platte/Geddes area that several new broods of pheasants were seen and both were rather large in size:D
 
SDJIM said:
Got a report today from the Platte/Geddes area that several new broods of pheasants were seen and both were rather large in size:D
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Beautiful:10sign::cheers:
 
UGUIDE said:
WOW. That is extremely early don't you think?

I know our turkey hunting was terrible last week and believe it was due to the breeding season moving up due to unseasonably warm spring weather.
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Yep it's really early, but when you feed cattle,work fences and other such farm work you get to see some neat things and my friend said he was really suprised to see the early broods,but he said what really got him was the size of the broods--sure it was only two but its a good start.

Several years ago I found a pheasant nest on the farm on Easter weekend, it had 7 eggs in it,now thats early
 
Well it's happened already--the Winner area and areas to the NNE just had a heavy thunderstorm with golf ball size hail reported. It is early in the season for this and its was darn early in the day to (about 9am local). Hopefully its not as bad as it sounds.:(
 
haymaker said:
So far I have not found a nest. When I am checking cattle or fixing fence I will kick up some hens, but so far I have not found a nest. Here the rain has done nothing but help. Chicks need dew and you can't have dew if you don't have humidity. I think it looks real good so far.
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Good point. I will take a wet April any day. After all, April showers bring May flowers. And we all know what flowers bring - bugs!

Brood sizes were expected to be large this Spring due to the mild winter. Hens came out of the winter extremely healthy.

The last two weeks of May and the first two weeks of June are always the most critical in my mind. Let's home Mother Nature is kind to us.
 
Just rolled into the state with a stop at Millborn Seeds in Brookings to pick up some seed for the tree belt. Jason Tronback and I had lunch downtown and the sky opened up in a deluge.

As I drove further west towrads farm my buddy in Armour texted me they got dumped on with and inch of rain in about 5 minutes. I drove 15 minutes further south to the farm and found things drier. In fact I called coop to see if they could load me up with fertilizer and I drove from farm to Lake Andes and was shocked to see guy disking and dust flying. Spotty rain no doubt. I found our west farm was wet and east farm was dry as a bone.

Roosters seem to be tending hens pretty heavy now.
 
Heavy rain from north of Mitchell to Madison on into Minnesota. Nobody needed what they got last night.
 
We're back into the wet pattern too:( looks like more rain for the days to come.

If only we could give a few of these storms to those dry states that really need it.
 
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