Flushing Bar Insentive

1pheas4

1pheas4

Moderator
Pheasants Forever is offering intensives for the use of flushing bars in SD this year.

"Pheasants Forever is piloting the use of flushing bars in South Dakota this year, and landowners are being offered cost-share incentives for the materials to build a custom device. South Dakotans interested in learning more about flushing bars are urged to contact their local Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Biologist, or Mike Blaalid (605) 770-6859 or Mike Stephenson (605) 651-2716."

Here's a link to the article for anyone interested:)

http://www.pheasantblog.org/flushing-bars-simple-devices-save-pheasants-in-hayfields/

Nick
 
This is exactly why I feel good about every dollar I donate to PF. What a great program!! Thumbs up to PF.
 
Somebody better be knocking on doors and educating some good old boys with this one. This might be a big deal in the future. I've seen halibut extruders change harvest.
 
Downer

Hate to be a downer but was tried on family farm in IL in the 60ths did not work very well. Best was farm dogs running ahead and flushing the hens.
 
Wess, I think Uguide tried something like this on his tractor last summer. From what I remember it worked out okay.

Maybe we can get him to comment on the subject and his experience with the flushing bar to find out more:confused:
 
1pheas4 said:
Wess, I think Uguide tried something like this on his tractor last summer. From what I remember it worked out okay.

Maybe we can get him to comment on the subject and his experience with the flushing bar to find out more:confused:
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I think the real problem is timing in Idaho even if the hen lives the protected magpies/crows/raviens get the eggs and if she try's setting with no cover the protected redtail hawks well kill her or even if she renests the next cutting comes along. Its Next to impossible to get a hatch off. Wonder if the nests are also lost in other places? If so other than saving the life of the hen what good is it?
 
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From what I understand, the main purpose of the flushing bar is to save the hen's life. She may or may not get another chance to nest that season but she lives on to nest later down the road--we hope.
 
Yeah the flushing bar is to save the hen. The nest and eggs will be lost.
Possibly a chick or two might be saved. Trouble is they just move to the uncut, including the hen, only to see the flushing bar over and over each swath.

Those that cut with a swather or haybine have the reel going out ahead of the cutting bar, works well as a flusher.
 
1pheas4 said:
From what I understand, the main purpose of the flushing bar is to save the hen's life. She may or may not get another chance to nest that season but she lives on to nest later down the road--we hope.
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In my area the machines move way to fast and at night with the lights freezing the hens to be of any use. Have to wonder if this is just some biologist wanting to fund another study or just lead us in circles.
 
mnmthunting said:
Yeah the flushing bar is to save the hen. The nest and eggs will be lost.
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Okay, I have a question for you I know you'll have the answer too; What keeps us from finding the eggs that were not crushed, then hatching them/raise them for release once they're old enough?

Haymaker keeps us up-to-date with the nests he leaves behind when he cuts Alfalfa. A filed like that could offer a good number of eggs for anyone willing to collect.

F1 birds would be a good way to propagate wild pheasants in a state such as IL:rolleyes:
 
Back in the sixties a farmer friend from S.D. sent down pheasant eggs, like 60 of them. I tried to hatch them but they were either cold, or been to long un-brooded, or did not respond to the make shift box and a light bulb! But the farmers up there did brood and release pheasants from nests in hayfields. Almost all farmers had incubators then and chickens, grew up when a pheasant was a novelty and regarded with pride in South Dakota. Now most farmers have a root plow, tiling equipment, more civic pride in corn or soybean yields. By the way, by the 1970's I considered Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, to be barren for upland game. The process goes westward every year! Overcame Iowa, Missouri, Eastern Dakota Eastern Kansas. Never in my life have I seen as much effort in hedgerow conversion, titling as I have this late winter. It's been dry, bushel price of grain is down, great time to go all in, and try to make that land produce what it can't normally do. Got to amortize that $5000-20,000+ purchase price. It's going to get worse before it gets better! A farmer with cash or credit can be a dangerous thing.
 
I thought I would mention, this is not new. As early as the 1890- on, Willa Cather , Red Cloud, Ne. recounted farm wagons crushing Prairie Grouse eggs going across the prairie. There were so many of them due to the small grain farming and alfalfa fields. I believe it's also mentioned in "Little house on the prairie". These folks made an effort to try to mitigate damage, but a little here a little there, creates what we have now. If we release birds? Where? and into What?
 
1pheas4 said:
Okay, I have a question for you I know you'll have the answer too; What keeps us from finding the eggs that were not crushed, then hatching them/raise them for release once they're old enough?

Haymaker keeps us up-to-date with the nests he leaves behind when he cuts Alfalfa. A filed like that could offer a good number of eggs for anyone willing to collect.

F1 birds would be a good way to propagate wild pheasants in a state such as IL:rolleyes:
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If someone wants to collect eggs when I cut hay that is fine but I think they will need some way to keep them warm when the do it. Probably get some duck eggs to. I have planted CRP next to the alfalfa to give them a better choice, I think that has helped. We are getting some nice April showers today.
 
haymaker said:
If someone wants to collect eggs when I cut hay that is fine but I think they will need some way to keep them warm when the do it. Probably get some duck eggs to. I have planted CRP next to the alfalfa to give them a better choice, I think that has helped. We are getting some nice April showers today.
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You know I have suggested this before. What you have is a "trip" crop. encourages them to lay in other than the alfalfa, or the hay crop. It will save some, the real story is their have been hay casualties for centuries. Before there were more birds, more nests, lots of corners and "wasted" space where the that productivity was successful. I remember that alfalfa was the preferred nesting crop near Broken Bow, Ne. It's hard to dissuade them from that! If we hatch them and raise them, we aren't far away from the pen-raised alternative. Birds who survived will me marginal as well. Your idea of the trip crop, will be more effective I think. Habitat has always been the answer, still is now. Not to forget there are a million reasons a nest or a chick gets pruned out, before and after the season, I am not sure the nest invasions are by action or by predators are not normal. The hyper reproduction cycle compensates....if we have habitat to support them! I know you take the extra mile to have success, if everybody did, it might be wildly successful, and provide enjoyment and enrich the life of the landowner. It has that affect on me!
 
For sure the best pheasant producing areas are those with last years growth and the new green growing up in it. This mix in with small grains and/or corn, other grains nearby is pheasnt country. And a mix of Winter cover.

Where pheasants nest in green fields it's because thats the best available.

Eggs, once the incubation starts, the incubation must continue. Hens will leave a nest to feed but for short times every 3-4 days or so and during the warmer time of the day. Incubated eggs dropping to 80 degrees or so will kill it in a short time. A nest found before incubation the eggs can be kept a room temps for probably a week 10 days but not lower then say 50 degrees.

Lots of us country boys have put Pheasant and Mallard eggs under a setting hen. Or in a incubator works fine. :thumbsup:

If you find an incubated nest, keep the eggs warm, above 90 degrees and get to a incubator fast.
 
Collecting wild F1 pheasant eggs from cut alfalfa and hay fields and quickly hatching them raising the chicks and releasing the half or full grown F1 pheasants back into the wild can only help the wild pheasant cause. Yes it would involve a lot of planning and hard work.

This is where your F1 pheasant would work best, at the edge of the wild pheasant range. The wild pheasant range is already getting smaller in some ares and slowly expanding other area.
I have an examples, Kingfisher, Oklahoma, wild pheasants are seen just north of that area. I took the wild pheasants 40 years to expand from Enid to that area. But very few pheasant are seen south of Kingfisher. Basically identical wheat farming country. This is where F1 pheasant would work best and like 1pheas4 mentioned also in areas in Illinois.

Chick pheasants that hatch from wild pheasants eggs that have survived in the wild world for 70 to 100 generations of getting away from ground and aerial predators along with surviving harsh winters and hot summers are completely different from pen raised chicks who's parents have lived in a (safe from predator well feed) pen for the last 70 to 100 generations. Not all pen raised pheasants are tame but some of the show signs of tameness.

The predators and harsh weather actually does a good job of sifting out the dumb (non wary non alert and unhealthy wild pheasants ) from the wild population.

This selective sifting out of non alert non wary pheasants over time cannot take place in a pen over numerous generation of living in a safe pen. After years both the tame and the wild pheasant will lay the same amount of eggs.

The reverse of this process in also true some tame birds will get lucy and have a hatch in the wild and their offsprings will get wilder and wilder (predators will help in this process) over time. But now days with the vast increase of predators the odds are stacked against them, they are eaten before they can figure out how to get away.
 
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