Cold weather effect on feeding patterns?

JPH

JPH

Member
With snow on the ground in much of the pheasant belt, low temps in single digits and highs in the teens and 20's, what effect does this have on pheasant feeding patterns? I mean do the feed for longer periods, spending more time in stubble, to fuel their furnace or do they feed faster, "get r done", and get back to good cover to loaf?
Curious what you guys think.

Merry Christmas:cheers:
 
They spend more time feeding the "furnace" as you say. It takes more energy to stay warm so in turn they eat more. I think we all tend to eat more in the colder months.:thumbsup:
 
They eat more and they tend to stay closer to cover when there is snow on the ground.

They camo doesn't work real good with a white backdrop so any feeding areas that have a little more cover than others are better areas to concentrate on.

With no snow they can stand in the middle of corn stubble and go unnoticed. Put two inches down and they get more skittish about where they are IMO.
 
I think they eat more, but spend less time in the feed and head back to heavy cover faster. When its nice and no snow on the ground, they may stay in corn or milo or short wheat stubble all day. When its cold and snowy they feed then head back to cover. Thats why some of the heavy cover next to stubble may not have any birds in it when its nice, but when its gets cold and snowy it will be loaded with them.
 
Just returned from 3 cold days in SW NE. We found the birds fed early and fast (20 min) in AM and moved back to woody cover to loaf for the majority of the day before feeding quickly in the PM and then flying/walking to roosting cover nearby. Shelter belts and abandoned farms with dead fall held many birds during the day.
So I agree that they feed more, but faster and move to the heavy cover.
 
anyone else having problems getting birds to fly in this cold weather? We have 4 inches of snow or so and its been just below the freezing mark and the birds just wanted to run on us the other day. THe one hen we flushed sat until we almost stepped on her. We would see tracks everywhere and nothing. My young short hair seemed confused at times.
 
We've been having birds stick in grass and get terrific points on them. They'r buried in thick stuff and they do not want to come out.

Had one of the dogs go on point in the side of a ditch a couple days ago and one of the other dogs slid in an we thought went on point the same bird.

When that happened the first dog moved off point about 2 feet and went right back on. Figured he just got a better radar lock on that one. Of course two cocks flew up after some kicking around! 2nd one startled the crap out of me and both birds flew unharmed into the sunset!
 
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