Game cover part 2

B

British gamekeeper

New member
Just a list of some of the game covers we use. Annual and perennial. If you can please try this one though! Chicory. It is a really good all round cover. Nesting,brood and driving all work well from this cover. Don't drill too thick! It will last 3 seasons. Season 2/3 will give the best results.

Maize,millet,sorghum,sunflower,mustard.Good annual cover.

Kale,chicory and different types of grasses. Canary,pampas and elephant. Good perennial covers.

A good cover mix Also works well. Kale, sunflower and millet mix is the most common we use. Lasts 3 seasons.

If you have any woodland please think before you act. Try not to touch a single tree. If it's a good roosting wood but not a good driving wood leave well alone. You can alway plant a cover crop a few 100 meters away and feed the pheasants away from the wood then drive them ' home'. That's how all of our basic reared shooting works. Release pens in good roosting woods, then feed the pheasants away into 2-3 game cover plots, then drive them home back to the roosting wood with guns in between to reap the rewards!

We all know wild game works differently. Where is home? They fly which way they like. That's when a gamekeeper and his beaters should do the job and hopefully turn the pheasants over standing guns.
 
Do most of the birds roost in the trees there? I always wondered why pheasants in the states don't roost off the ground.
 
quail hound said:
Do most of the birds roost in the trees there? I always wondered why pheasants in the states don't roost off the ground.
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I have seen pheasants in the states do that in limited amounts, in the west, but not as far west as you.

British gamekeeper said:
Yep. I would say 90% will roost up a tree or a hedgerow. Anything to get off the ground to avoid foxes or badgers.
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I presume that there are no owls that would prey on the pheasants? What about hawks?
 
We have an owl (tawny owl) that will kill endless amount of pheasant poults when they are in the release pens. Kinda like chickens in a run. They just fly in give them a pinch go and land on a post and will do this all night long. I had one owl kill at least 40 poults in one night! But they won't really take adult birds that are roosting. As far as hawks go, I would say goshawks are a real danger during daylight.Females can be up to 2 1/2llbs in weight.
 
quail hound said:
Do most of the birds roost in the trees there? I always wondered why pheasants in the states don't roost off the ground.
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predation is too high. Don't ask me why that's not the case in other parts of the world where pheasants roost in trees:confused: I suppose we have more predators, possibly.
 
Over here it seems the poults, when old enough, follow the hen up to roost. Then I guess that's passed on through the generations until it's become imprinted. Even if there is no real predator problem. Also most of the winters we have are not as harsh as some in the states so the birds can afford to be more exposed to the weather. Off topic there are deer in Europe that turn around where electric fences used to be, but no longer exist. With no living deer from the time being alive to show younger deer to avoid he area! scientists believe the instinct/memory has been genetically imprinted.
 
All of the birds I've ever raised (chickens, guineas, turkeys) are free range and roost in the trees around my property and I've never lost a bird off the roost and there is a horned owl living at my neighbors place. My guineas refused to lay in nest boxes and instead nested in my pasture and got plucked off by my neighborhood fox as soon as they started sitting. Quail out here roost in trees also. Seems much safer to roost off the ground even in the presence of owls to me.
 
Where there are trees and shrubs available young pheasants do like to hang out up in the branches. seems they will get picked off one at a time by predators until the dumb ones are gone and or the others wise up. So the better choice is heavy ground cover.
I do sometimes see adult pheasants feeding in Buffalo Berry and Russian Olive trees. But never roosting.
Pheasants for whatever reason love to hang out on top of big round bales, but again, they won't roost there.
 
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