Food processing

C

Citori16

Active member
Had discussion after a hunt the other day. Buddy had shot a bird 2 hrs before dark that was full of corn in its crop. His opinion was it would take the bird a day or two to process the food before returning to eat.
2nd opinion was that the bird had been eating all day was would process the corn during the night and return to eat again the next morning.
3rd opinion was the bird ate early morning then went to loafing area processed breakfast then returned in the afternoon to eat and return to roost to process the food
Thoughts?
 
My understanding is that the 3rd opinion is typical, but of course this routine can get changed by weather, hunting pressure, available food, etc...


Jerry
 
I would concur with Jerry. Wake up, get grit and eat. After the morning meal, they'll loaf somewhere (cattails, thick grass, shelterbelts) in the late morning to mid-afternoon then eat again before going to roost.

When storms hit, pheasants will go a couple days without eating, but that is the exception, in my opinion.
 
I have no answers, but interested in what others think on this. I have wondered about this before and haven't read anything that documented the pheasant's eating patterns. I just never knew if the ones that you see returning from the fields in the last light are the same, different or a second trip. as the ones seen feeding in the early hours of the day.
 
I going to add option 4 "all the above", I would think food consumption would be somewhat weather dependent. In the warmer times of the year they an not needing as much energy so they may not be feeding as often as when winter comes. Firm believer they know the change in weather patterns and will fill their crops full when nasty weather is approaching, this allows them to conserve energy by not having to feed in the harsh weather and allow them to ride out the storm. I'm in SD now, the number of birds feeding during the day on wednesday was staggering, noon to 4'ish, i think they were stocking up to ride out the ice storm we got wednesday night into thursday and potentially friday. This wasn't just one or 2 birds feeding it was groups of 20 to 40 right next to their cover. Hope the handled the freezing precip ok.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
(That's "supper" if they're far north pheasants.)
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Then Kansas must be "far north" :) When I was at K-State in the 1990s, you could tell whether someone came from a farming family or a city family by how they referred to meals. For the farm kids, "dinner" was the mid-day meal and "supper" was the evening meal. As recently as a year ago, my son got confused by this when someone told him that the guy he was looking for would be back "after dinner", and then the guy showed up about 1:30.
 
matto said:
Then Kansas must be "far north" :) When I was at K-State in the 1990s, you could tell whether someone came from a farming family or a city family by how they referred to meals. For the farm kids, "dinner" was the mid-day meal and "supper" was the evening meal. As recently as a year ago, my son got confused by this when someone told him that the guy he was looking for would be back "after dinner", and then the guy showed up about 1:30.
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Whether they're from the north, from a farm, or wherever...that's just messed up. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
matto said:
Then Kansas must be "far north" :) When I was at K-State in the 1990s, you could tell whether someone came from a farming family or a city family by how they referred to meals. For the farm kids, "dinner" was the mid-day meal and "supper" was the evening meal. As recently as a year ago, my son got confused by this when someone told him that the guy he was looking for would be back "after dinner", and then the guy showed up about 1:30.
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Brent and I have a friendly back and forth about dinner and supper. Dinner, for me, refers to a larger meal at midday, typically Sunday dinner of meat, potatoes, corn and gravy after church. Lunch is when you go home and heat up leftovers or make a sandwich. But anything in the evening is supper.
 
Lots of lunches. Same here, the noon meal was dinner (as usually now know as lunch) and the evening meal was supper.
 
When I was an Iron Worker , your lunch box was referred to as a '' Dinner Bucket '' And the mid day meal was Dinner]. Only place down here Ive ever heard that!!
 
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