There was a very good article on the KDWP website. Bird biologists for the state say that hunters only kill a fraction of the birds that predators kill. Much the same way one buck can breed many does or a lone rooster can take care of many chickens in a henhouse, a single rooster pheasant breeds with many hens. They claim that a 1-10 ratio of roosters to hens is sufficient and that the state of ks if I remember right is usually around 1-4 roosters to hen ratio. I'm glad its not 1-10 but killing one rooster only means that one rooster isn't there next year.
A 1-10 ratio of roosters to hens might work well for pen-raised pheasants fertility.
But if that ratio was ever really achieved in the real nasty wild world of ground and aerial predators, thorns, creeks, ditches, marshes, hills, valleys and mile long fields it would adversely effect the wild hens spring fertility.
If 90% of the roosters were actually harvested and hens were spread out over miles that one poor rooster would risk his life (possibly being picked off by a hawk) flying around trying to mate with 10 hens spread out over a mile. In the wild pheasant world that does not happen, roosters pick a small ground territory to crow in.
What I normally notice in the Texas panhandle is around 1-4 rooster hen ratio.
I enjoy hunting pheasants but I also enjoy watching them in the spring and summer time. I would also spend a lot of time watching pheasants when I was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas.
On a friends ranch I do my own crow-count from mid April to late May. I get in the field around 5:45 A.M. and leave around 10:30 A.M. just watching pheasant and quail.
We have to remember wild roosters don't just mate, they develop strong defensive bonds with a small group of hens. They also guard and protect the wild hens in early spring while the hens rapidly feed and gain vital nutrition needed to lay healthy eggs.
One panhandle farmer told me that he saw a wild rooster beat the mess out of a road runner, the road runner was trying to raid the nest for eggs or trying to eat the newly hatched pheasant chicks.
Roosters might play a greater roll in protecting the nest than we think.
I know wildlife management official for the last 40 or 50 years have consistently said that hunters can safely harvest 90% of the wild roosters. But based on my field observations, that is not good advice.
