Cold temps and feeding the birds

remy3424

remy3424

Well-known member
We are testing our cover/habiat now. Hope those birds found good roosting spots last night, -14° here, guessing it is even a bit colder in the Dakotas. We have our first real snow of the season on the ground now, just a couple inches. No wind, cold enough it is loose, not packed, birds can dig through if needed to find food. I hope our food plots (grain sorghum) are still providing. I haven't walked out and checked them, I have a feeling they are bare with the bird population we have. The extended forecast shows even colder temps coming next week. This winter is says "not so fast, your aren't getting off that easy!" With a couple 60° days in late January, I was kinda hoping winter would wrap-up early...that thinking might give us winter thru March.

I have 2 steel drums full of shelled corn in placed in a hedgerow next to 18 acres of switchgrass....just incase things got bad. This late into the winter, I am thinking about putting out 10 gallons every week (maybe twice a week once they are on it), as that corn will not last the summer in those drums. A bit unsure about feeding them in these "not so extreme" conditions. I know that frickin bird flu could be out there and feeding will bring a lot of birds together. And then I don't want them to get relying on that food source....but we should be on the down side of the cold and snow season. 10 gallons (even 20) a week, will get us in to milder weather, and get that corn used-up. What would any of you fellas who create habitat do in this situation? This would be the first time feeding, that I will not need to walk in the 3 eighths a mile to do this, the walk is not fun busting though snow.
 
Conditions are a little bit better here in Kansas, but still much colder than normal for us. I don't worry nearly as much about temps as I do about snow/ice cover. I have good cover for the birds everywhere, and on some tracts there is plentiful waste grain when there is little-to-no snow and ice. But there are two tracts that aren't so well-provisioned.

One of those is about 100 acres of mostly native grass, plum thickets, and forbs. This year the adjoining tillable ground is green wheat, rye, or summer fallow to be planted to corn this spring. In other words, not much food. I put out milo on this tract using "Currie" style feeders starting in early November. They probably ran empty in January and I have not refilled them. It's a 4.5 hour time commitment to drive there and back, plus 1-1.5 hours to fill them. Filling the feeders is definitely a "thing."

20 miles from that tract is the other, which is about 60 acres of native grass in 3 strips. Not nearly as many forbs on this tract. There's a little bit more waste grain available on the adjoining tillable, but not as much as I'd like. I have a few curry feeders on this tract too, and they also probably went dry in January.

I'd prefer to fill the feeders once in the fall and once in January. It takes about 400-450 pounds of milo to fill them all. This year I just didn't get it done. Some years I haven't done it at all, and it does make a difference in hunting success. It's not clear to me if the difference in hunting success is because of higher populations or just the availability of feed concentrating the existing populations.
 
I wouldn't feed them (yet). Given the conditions you stated, they can still access good cover to roost and food under a couple inches of fluffy snow. Bitter cold won't bother them if they have those other two items available.

It's really deep snow and/or a layer of ice that inhibits their ability to feed. Really deep snow could also remove certain roosting locations.

Bird flu is real too. Congregating wild birds increases the chances of spread. It's the exact reason its so deadly for domesticated poultry.
 
I think I might sneak in there after work and walk the food plot that is right beside my barrels, to see if there is any seed left in the sorghum heads...if barren, I might get started on the corn.
I have been thinking about the spring planting of the food plots already. The birds dig out a lot of what I plant. I am think of running down the hedgerow (about a quarter mile long) with our little JD tractor and fertilizer spreader/seeder with shelled corn a few times...before planting and until the sorghum is a couple inches tall, in hopes they concentrate on that feeding in that area and leave my planting alone. It could work....not sure what else to do...some years I plant 3 times and they keep digging it out. I really need productive plots.

Tonight isn't going to work, aiming for Saturday now.
 
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Not bad ideas, Remy.

For me, it’s hard in winter around my area when the farmers turn the ground over, and it snows a couple of inches. Now I don’t necessarily think birds hurt too much in fluffier snow, but I do think harvested fields are a guessing game for birds in poking around and trying to find leftover corn or other goods. That’s energy expended in cold conditions.

To deal with that, I’m planting crabapples and shrubs with berries next year to try to give the birds an extra source of easily available food in winter. I’m looking to plant 1.5 acres of a CRP food plot next year for the birds, so that’ll be a task to get that right like you’re working on. WI winters can be brutal here and getting the birds through it in better health can mean more eggs laid and more birds in the fall.

I haven’t tried it but trying to help you out with the plot - maybe putting out a coyote decoy or some flashing pans in your plot could help the Milo for a while.
 
Most of the food plots are 30 feet wide, they parallel the hedgerow and the others are mostly under or over terraces, in the saddles, But I would like to see if coyote decoys would work....I would need about 50 of them! There are about 6 acres on the quarter of food plots.

I am with you on planting shrubs and trees that produce a food. Most everything I plant in for habitat produces food, except the cedar trees...and they even have that orange berry type of spore thing that might be eaten??? But the cedar trees will be a great snow catch or blizzard roosts....when you keep them where you want them.

Across the road from our CRP the corn field was tilled, another has cattle on it, but there is a decent amount of foraging to be had outside of the food plots, but image if you had a few hundred chickens and had to feed them....how much grain that would be daily, every day....can they find that much within a short distance of their roosts? These combines do an incredible job, if there aren't some sharp corners, where the head knock some down, there is just not much waste out there these days.
 
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I personally don’t like fixed location feeders because of predator pressure…..a barrel feeder is like a fast food sign for raptors in my area…bobcats figure it out pretty quick too. If (big if) I feed I spread it over long distance in cover…
Hawks will catch their share regardless, but I do not like to make it easy or attract too many.
So I really like your broadcast spreader behind the tractor….
All that said, all of your hawks are probably camped out on my place right now 😀
 
UplandJim said:
I personally don’t like fixed location feeders because of predator pressure…..a barrel feeder is like a fast food sign for raptors in my area…bobcats figure it out pretty quick too. If (big if) I feed I spread it over long distance in cover…
Hawks will catch their share regardless, but I do not like to make it easy or attract too many.
So I really like your broadcast spreader behind the tractor….
All that said, all of your hawks are probably camped out on my place right now 😀
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Don’t forget the grit All the food it the world won’t help if they don’t have the grit to process it
 
-I will try to take a few pics when I check things out this weekend.
-Feeding in the hegldgerow, will provide raptor protection.
-My plan is if there isn't substantial snow under the wild plums, to throw the corn into those...if there is substantial snow, more piles under those plums. The snow might be beat/packed down if the birds have been loafing in that area.
-The crp parcel boarders a graveled road on one side.
-Cedar rust is a thing, I do have a few apple and other fruit trees started, in the back corner, but those are pretty much for wildlife or a snack if I am working out there, at the right time of the year.
 
UplandJim said:
I personally don’t like fixed location feeders because of predator pressure…..a barrel feeder is like a fast food sign for raptors in my area…bobcats figure it out pretty quick too.
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That's certainly a risk. I try to mitigate it through feeder placement. All the feeders on the first tract are positioned on the edge of plum thickets, ie, feeding birds have thick plum bushes over their heads. Probably doesn't do much to protect against bobcats, but the raptors would have a difficult time getting through the plum to the birds.
 
matto said:
Probably doesn't do much to protect against bobcats
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Feral cats are a MUCH bigger problem here than natural predators like bobcats or yotes. Luckily, coyotes regularly hunt and prey on feral cats. So they are doing some good.
 
Have only seen one bobcat in my life, have some coyotes, don't see much for feral cats here. Raptors would be my guess to be the biggest predator to the pheasants here....well, behind me.
 
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I don't support feeding wildlife. What wildlife needs from us is to restore the habitat we have destroyed. Winter isn't cold enough in Kansas to warrant any intervention. Our winters are relatively mild. It was cold Tuesday-Thursday but it is short lived and 54 degree's out west here today. If there was a foot or so of snow with ice and frigid conditions, maybe. But we very seldom get that. There are much more negatives to feeding/baiting than benefits. I hope to hell it finally gets banned here in Kansas.
 
What I do, is go into the tree row, and clear out the snow with my boot down to bare ground. Then I dump cracked corn on the ground. I think it really helps these birds out when it gets snowy.
 
Well, the sorghum plot looked cleaned out, imagine they all are. I put out around 30 gallons of corn. Pulled back the snow in 5 different places in the plums. Back in the cedars, I threw another 5 two gallon buckets, under 5 different trees in that inside row of the shelter belt (in the 5th pic you can see the cedars). Hope a little extra food can get then through the coming brutal week of sub-zero temps that are coming at us.
Took a few pics...
2.15 early distaint.jpg
2.15 early barrels.jpg

2.15 hedgerow.jpg

2.15 corn pile.jpg
2.15 2 corn piles.jpg
2.15 east.jpg
2.15 west.jpg
 
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westksbowhunter said:
I don't support feeding wildlife. What wildlife needs from us is to restore the habitat we have destroyed. Winter isn't cold enough in Kansas to warrant any intervention. Our winters are relatively mild. It was cold Tuesday-Thursday but it is short lived and 54 degree's out west here today. If there was a foot or so of snow with ice and frigid conditions, maybe. But we very seldom get that. There are much more negatives to feeding/baiting than benefits. I hope to hell it finally gets banned here in Kansas.
Click to expand...
Pheasants were scarce in Nebraska before the big push for ethanol corn and now it just open air manufactoring of corn for that stuff. Talk about ruining the habitat.
 
Nice pics of the snowy landscape. Looks like the grass is holding up well. That’s good to see!

Like the look of the shelterbelt in the second to last pic with those beefy cedars. That should block snow and wind nicely.
 
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