Are Pheasants Toast?

hunter94 said:
i am not here to throw gasoline on the fire, but a farmer north of Mitchell, SD told me several years ago, that every spring he buys and turns loose about
100 adult hen pheasants to supplement his wildbird population. for what it's worth, he felt it helped his wild bird production on his pay to hunt ground.
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I don't doubt that happens, but he may as well buy bags of dog food for the coyotes because that's where they end up. Many of these high dollar operations probably buy birds to put out for there hunters, many of which pay 2k or more for a 3 day hunt. There is no large scale release of birds by the State. I can find a preserve hunt here. Pheasant hunting in SD is good because they view it as a resource. Like the guy I hunt with, he farms 10k acres. But he leaves a lot for the birds. I pay him a tresspass fee and he probably pulls down a nice chunk just letting us and others play hunter on his land. But his little operation with food plots and the like he winters a couple thousand birds on his property. That makes all the land around him better. Habitat is the answer long term. We have good years now followed by bad ones. When i first started hunting in early seventies, we had consistent good followed by phenomenal. The only thing that had changed is habitat. That is why we have such yearly swings. Roundup, and clean farming have been the bane of bird hunting not weather or predators. They have always been here, and we have always had weather.
 
Carptom, the "bags of dogfood" comment is so funny - you can't believe how hard I am laughing - it just really hit my funny bone. You made my day! Still, no disrespect for those with a different opinion!
 
I know a group of guys that buy 300 "flight-ready" roosters each fall to plant on their former preserve land. He said after that first weekend, the hawks almost beat the delivery trucks to the field when re-stocking.
 
Maybe the 100 hens released in March keep the predators off the wild ones long enough to raise a Brood???
 
BleuBijou, I'm thinking about that one and I think you're on to something.

I may be able to accept a diversion-decoy use for these poor hens. But perhaps a few bags of the cheap dog food would work just as well.
 
RK Special K said:
BleuBijou, I'm thinking about that one and I think you're on to something.

I may be able to accept a diversion-decoy use for these poor hens. But perhaps a few bags of the cheap dog food would work just as well.
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No disrespect intended, but I dunno about the long-term success of that plan. Here's what I know about predators...

They eat all year long. If you fatten them up in the Spring, their population will boom, and there will be that many more of them that need to eat the rest of the year. And they will be stronger, healthier, and more concentrated in the area that you don't want them in.

Case in point... Years ago we "adopted" a friendly stray cat that was probably abandoned by somebody in town. We started leaving food and water out on our porch for him. He and our pet cat would hang out and eat the food, and we thought "what's the harm". Then one day a momma raccoon discovered the food bowl and started cleaning it out every day about dark. Within a week, we had at least a half dozen raccoons coming up to the porch every night looking for leftover cat food. They were cute so we fed them for a few more weeks until our cat got in a fight with one and got pretty scraped up. We started feeding the cats inside, hoping the raccoons would go away since there was no more food. So then the raccoons ate our cats.

What I take away from that story is that it is a bad idea to attract predators. Rather than giving foxes, raccoons, and coyotes easy-pickins, it would probably be a better idea to leave them alone, or maybe even trap a few here and there. That would be my idea anyway.

Again, no disrespect intended. Maybe your plan would work fine, I just imagine there might be better alternatives out there.
 
My comment on the diversion-decoy plan was really not intened as a serious one. I think Carptom and I are just having a little fun with the issue.

Seriously though, if someone has a cost-effective way to minimize predators, I'd be all for it.

My basic understanding, however, is that with decent habitat around, predation can be easily tolerated and does not hugely affect our hunting. As with every basic principle, there probably are exceptions.

The basic principle is this: If you provide the birds with adequate cover, they will work with it to avoid significant predation.
 
RK Special K said:
My comment on the diversion-decoy plan was really not intened as a serious one. I think Carptom and I are just having a little fun with the issue.

Seriously though, if someone has a cost-effective way to minimize predators, I'd be all for it.

My basic understanding, however, is that with decent habitat around, predation can be easily tolerated and does not hugely affect our hunting. As with every basic principle, there probably are exceptions.

The basic principle is this: If you provide the birds with adequate cover, they will work with it to avoid significant predation.
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the only problem, now, during times of extreme drought, a ton of habitat ends up in farmhand bales.....predators will have a hayday until grass cover recovers. the trend is not our friend........
 
Yes I know, Mean Mother Nature has scorned us the last couple years with these hot, dry times. But I consider this a "short-term" problem. If this dry, thin, baled-up grass stays in CRP, next year it could be lush, thick and full of birds. Let's give her credit, she can be kind too! Unless we force farmers to leave even the worst of this grass alone for whatever benefit it is to the birds, there are some things we just can't control.

However, if we loose large amounts of CRP from the landscape, then of course, we have BIG long term problems.

My DREAM: If I could be "King of Pheasant Land", I would require that 20% of all farmland be CRP grass. From year-to-year I would accept what mood Mother Nature was in and accept the predation factor.

In this scenario, some years would be fair/ok and some years would be unbelievably fantastic to the point of pheasants becoming a plague. Destruction of crops by the birds would be immense. The President would declare it a national disaster and would call upon all bird hunters to come to aid of their country to rid the mid-west of these pesky critters. Ammo would be paid for by the USDA. Truckload after truckload of shells would be raced to dispatch locations throughout "pheasant land". Federal, Remington, Winchester, etc. would be working three shifts just to keep up. Women would have to leave home to work in these factories. "Tent-towns" would spring up everywhere in "pheasant land" to house the hunters. 4-star generals would be flown in to offer assistance on strategy. Semi-loads of dead pheasants would be rushed to chicken processing plants throughout the country. Pheasant nuggets would be on the menu at just about every resturant.

Ok, I woke up, it was only a dream........
 
How about a condensation guzzler in every CRP patch? :)
 
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Before we start throwing stones at releasing 100 pen-raised pheasant hens in the spring time, lets not forget that all of our wild North American ringneck pheasants came from pen-raised bird maybe 100, 70 or 50 to 40 years ago. We alway have two sides to every story. We have to use fair balance (truth) when talking about pen-raised pheasant.

Pen-raised pheasants (from England stock) got wild pheasants started in Kansas in 1906, and Kansas had a game farm (in Pratt) in the 30's and 40's and part of the 50's that released thousands and thousands of pen-raised pheasants over the state.
In 1908 in Redfield, S. Dakota the release of pen-raised pheasants got the wild birds started in that area.

Of course all initially released pheasant encountered high mortality. But a small percent of those pen-raised pheasants did survive to get the wild pheasants start.

I will admit that some of the available pen raised pheasants are tame and dumb but not all of them. The predators will get fat eating maybe 80% of the pen raised pheasant, but the 20% that survives and reproduce is better than zero. Some areas don't need birds but after a two year back to back bad drought where bird numbers are low or zero.

Releasing in the spring 100 well feathered healthy hens from f1 wild strains of pen raised pheasants may not be a bad idea. We cannot pretend that pen raised pheasants had no part in our wild pheasants history. I will admit that we need more authentic wilded pen-raised pheasant genes to use as brood stock.

Habitat talk is good in normal conditions but S. W. Kansas and the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle are experiencing a biblical size drought. I have had reports of people that flushed 100 wild pheasants per day in the fall of 2010 are now seeing zero pheasants.
There is definitely a place in the future for f1 wilder strains of pen raised pheasants.
We have to demand that the commercial game farms produce wilder and more alert and wary pen-raised pheasants.
 
Preston1 said:
Before we start throwing stones at releasing 100 pen-raised pheasant hens in the spring time, lets not forget that all of our wild North American ringneck pheasants came from pen-raised bird maybe 100, 70 or 50 to 40 years ago. We alway have two sides to every story. We have to use fair balance (truth) when talking about pen-raised pheasant.

Pen-raised pheasants (from England stock) got wild pheasants started in Kansas in 1906, and Kansas had a game farm (in Pratt) in the 30's and 40's and part of the 50's that released thousands and thousands of pen-raised pheasants over the state.
In 1908 in Redfield, S. Dakota the release of pen-raised pheasants got the wild birds started in that area.

Of course all initially released pheasant encountered high mortality. But a small percent of those pen-raised pheasants did survive to get the wild pheasants start.

I will admit that some of the available pen raised pheasants are tame and dumb but not all of them. The predators will get fat eating maybe 80% of the pen raised pheasant, but the 20% that survives and reproduce is better than zero. Some areas don't need birds but after a two year back to back bad drought where bird numbers are low or zero.

Releasing in the spring 100 well feathered healthy hens from f1 wild strains of pen raised pheasants may not be a bad idea. We cannot pretend that pen raised pheasants had no part in our wild pheasants history. I will admit that we need more authentic wilded pen-raised pheasant genes to use as brood stock.

Habitat talk is good in normal conditions but S. W. Kansas and the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle are experiencing a biblical size drought. I have had reports of people that flushed 100 wild pheasants per day in the fall of 2010 are now seeing zero pheasants.
There is definitely a place in the future for f1 wilder strains of pen raised pheasants.
We have to demand that the commercial game farms produce wilder and more alert and wary pen-raised pheasants.
Click to expand...

Very well said and thank you for the education.

Greg
 
Preston1 said:
Before we start throwing stones at releasing 100 pen-raised pheasant hens in the spring time, lets not forget that all of our wild North American ringneck pheasants came from pen-raised bird maybe 100, 70 or 50 to 40 years ago. We alway have two sides to every story. We have to use fair balance (truth) when talking about pen-raised pheasant.

Pen-raised pheasants (from England stock) got wild pheasants started in Kansas in 1906, and Kansas had a game farm (in Pratt) in the 30's and 40's and part of the 50's that released thousands and thousands of pen-raised pheasants over the state.
In 1908 in Redfield, S. Dakota the release of pen-raised pheasants got the wild birds started in that area.

Of course all initially released pheasant encountered high mortality. But a small percent of those pen-raised pheasants did survive to get the wild pheasants start.

I will admit that some of the available pen raised pheasants are tame and dumb but not all of them. The predators will get fat eating maybe 80% of the pen raised pheasant, but the 20% that survives and reproduce is better than zero. Some areas don't need birds but after a two year back to back bad drought where bird numbers are low or zero.

Releasing in the spring 100 well feathered healthy hens from f1 wild strains of pen raised pheasants may not be a bad idea. We cannot pretend that pen raised pheasants had no part in our wild pheasants history. I will admit that we need more authentic wilded pen-raised pheasant genes to use as brood stock.

Habitat talk is good in normal conditions but S. W. Kansas and the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle are experiencing a biblical size drought. I have had reports of people that flushed 100 wild pheasants per day in the fall of 2010 are now seeing zero pheasants.
There is definitely a place in the future for f1 wilder strains of pen raised pheasants.
We have to demand that the commercial game farms produce wilder and more alert and wary pen-raised pheasants.
Click to expand...

while I can appreciate the intent of your post, I can hardly see the relevance to todays climate. Simply releasing birds, regardless of orgin, will not solve the problem. In the 30's, 40's, and 50's the lanscape was of the small family farm. Many fencerows shelterbelts and no Roundup or clean farming. My grandfather owned a small farm and always " left a little for the animals". Those days are gone. Releasing birds without increasing habitat is fruitless. Back then those birds had a great chance of survival. Sure the drought has decimated cover in many areas of kansas. But much of that cover was marginal already. Farming every corner and haying every ditch leaves us at the mercy of the weather more than in days back. ( and no I am not blaming farmers, if I was asked to take less at my job I would balk too) My idea as always has been increased hunter fees and better management. What good does it do to have a million acres of WIHA and half or more of it to be crap? Charge me more to hunt, sign up less land, pay more for access, and place some restrictions on it. Me paying 20.50 for a yearly resident license is a joke. I would gladly pay more for better hunting. That's not even a meal at mcdonalds for me and two kids.
 
i guess this is getting a bit controversial.......maybe not, but here's something to think about.....the planting from fencerow to fencerow, post to post, haying the fence row ditchs right up to the roadside and pulling out tree rows planted back in the 30's, plowing up highly erodable ground to try for a wheat crop.......yeah, keep it up boys, for the almighty dollar, because when the next dustbowl comes, you'll be broke and will have to give your farm back to the banker.....say it can't happen again?.....too many have never seen it and don't remember/know the history....a repeat would be very sad, indeed.
 
I do take issue with the opinion that our country was stocked, even partly, with "pen-reared" birds.

The biggest initial success in America with pheasants were "live-trapped" birds from China released in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. I believe the year was 1881. These birds absolutely exploded in population. I'm sure they were in a pen on the boat over but they certainly were not "pen-reared from egg to adult" as we now define "pen-reared".

Some of these Willamette Valley birds were again later live-trapped and stocked elsewhere in the plains states. Additional birds also came again as live-trapped from China or more generally Asia.

England stocked their country with wild birds from China many years before us and they did establish a wild bird population there. My opinion is that what successfully transplanted birds from England to America were live-trapped wild birds - not "egg to adult" man-fed, caged up birds.

As I understand it, all pheasants are from Asian area ancestry. Everywhere else they are newcomers/transplants.

I'm not an extensive pheasant historian, but I will make an educated guess that none of any successful stocking efforts were from nothing other than true, live-trapped wild birds, initially directly from Asia.

I would like to confirm my suspicions, so I will do some additional research on the matter and report back.

This shouldn't be "controversial". ALL of us just need to do a little more research and see what turns up.
 
No doubt the Build-A-Better-Pheasant starter kit will work but on the comparison of trains needing tracks, I'm not sure how much focus it deserves.

The whole discussion does make me glad that some gamebirds, like the ruffed grouse, can never, ever arrive in kit form.
If they did, something special would be lost that greater populations would never, ever replace.
 
Yes, I find the fact that Ruffed Grouse simply refuse a pen-life very interesting. They just simply die off in a pen. Even hatched chicks will not eat man-fed food. And adults refuse to mate in captivity - they just flat-out QUIT.

LIVE FREE OR DIE must be their motto.
 
There has been some controlled raising of ruffed grouse in captivity but nothing on a scale or cost basis that would matter with raise and release.
For that, I'm glad.
I do believe WVU had their Grouse House once...I forget exactly, but believe the professor may have been studing the vocal aspects of the captive bird.
The particulars tho, I'm otherwise unaware.
I also seem to recall a private individual in the midwest trying it as well with limited success, tho how that was legally done, I don't know.
Again, thankfully on the limited.
I can't imagine anything much sadder than Ruffed Grouse on a Preserve menu.
 
I liken a pen-reared bird similar to the following scenario:

A child is born in its basement. The mother and father leave this baby from birth in this basement. He is fed milk by machine. Food eventually is fed to him through a small opening. He has a cot, a chair, and 4 walls. No books, no TV, no education, no anything - 4 walls. He is taught absolutely nothing and has no contact with the outside world. Once a week, however, someone enters briefly to clean up. Nothing is said to him. For what this basement offers him, he can exercise a bit, stretch, etc. and only wonder about things.

On his birthday at age 20 he is brought from the basement and shown an open front door. He is led down the front steps to the sidewalk and told "good luck son, I wish you all the best" but of course he doesn't understand a word. He wanders around aimlessly and sees many things go to and fro. Standing next to a freeway he looks completely puzzled. He steps onto it because he is frightened by nothing. Within seconds a large "thing" is appearing to him to get larger and larger as he stares at it. He sees strange squiggles on it - M-A-C-K. He covers his ears because he hears a loud sound. Only a second or two later he is splattered.

So too, is the fate of our completely clueless pen-reared pheasants!
 
Ok, did some checking:

PF has 2 classiifications:

STOCKING: Releasing pen-reared birds into the wild. Even if released into the best of habitat, in short order, these birds will be dead. 90% are taken by predators in the first week because " pen-reared birds never had a chance to learn predator avoidance behavior". Starvation is also a problem - "newly-released STOCKED pheasants take up to three weeks to develop foraging patterns essential to survival in the wild". Reproduction is also a problem - "released hens are not productive enough to replace their own losses ....and a population declines rapidly".

TRANSPLANTING: Releasing wild, live-trapped birds into a different wild habitat. "Because of their high productivity, these wild pheasants can quickly populate good habitat". TRANSPLANTING wild birds is the only solution.

Another note from PF:

"reducing predator populations to levels where pheasant numbers can rise would involve astronomical costs".

I want to investgate further. I'm interested in the true TRANSPLANTING origins of our American pheasants.
 
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