Habitat - How Long??

C

Coler

New member
Hi Everyone,
I am a new member to the forum and this is my first post. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and my family recently bought a farm (5 years ago about) in Southern Alberta. Over the last three years we have been working with our PF chapter here in Alberta on habitat rehabilitation. We have created three cattail sloughs on the property (quite large), planted 120,000 trees (caragana, dogwood and choke cherry), and turned all the corners into grassland/nesting habitat (we also have an entire quater section of natural grassland). This year we are looking at putting in some feed plots next to the cover areas. Due to the short growing seasons here in Alberta it still looks like we are about 5 years away from the habitat really taking hold and looking great. In total we have 2 sections of consalidated land that we are working on. We also don't have the wild pheasant numbers here that you American's enjoy in States such as the Dakota's and Montana (if I drove my area/range all day I would probably see a couple of pheasants, they are around but not in large numbers). So here is my question, assuming that we get our habitat fully developed in the next 5 years.. what would be the time frame for us to start seeing a healthy return of bird numbers on the property based on everyone's personal experience with habitat work??
 
If I was doing all that work and expense. I'd spend a few Bucks more and buy some birds to plant. The trick to planting birds is do it in the spring with chicks. There are plenty of bugs for the chicks to feed on. Your mortality rate is far fewer than with grown birds in the fall. Then let the natural breeding take over from your planting. It make take more than one yearly planting to get desired numbers going.---Bob
 
Planted Birds

Hey Bob,
Can you explain what you mean by planted birds? From my understanding pen-raised birds have about a five percent survival rate and even the ones that do survive tend to breed at about 5% rate (as per literature I have read). Put those 2 numbers together and things don't look so great... we have done a lot of release hunts already on the property but we don't really expect those populations to provide any future birds (over the last 4 years we have probably released at least a 1000 pen raised birds on the property of which 300 were hens and haven't seen a marked increase in birds yet). If it is possible I would love to transplant wild birds but I have not found any organization or group that does this.
Thanks,
Cole
 
Coler, you're right on your numbers on stocked birds. You end up paying $ X 20 for the survivors and even then you have an inferior bird. If you have birds in the area and make significant improvments in the habitat your resultant increase will still depand upon getting a respectable production year. I don't know much about the great north, but I'm sure the perils are greater due to winter weather and drought. If you can string 1-3 good production years together you could see a huge increase. Be sure in your management plan that you include your neighbors acres. If they are providing a certain habitat and something else is limiting, make sure you are significantly covering the limiting factor. Far too many private managers focus on one element of habitat and never see the increase because they have not considered the limiting factor. Your list covers everything other than dedicated brood-rearing habitat, something like sanfoin, medic, clover, or alfalfa. Native forbs can be used as well. It's hard to tell how your site lays from the description, or what you included in your grassland seed mix. Brood-rearing cover is often overlooked and the source of limited success in plans. The woody cover will be the slowest to mature, followed by the grass. Your local PF folks should be giving you good information. One other thought, with only 2 sections, you may want to draw your nieghbor's birds over to your ground in the hunting season. Providing the thermal cover and winter food will accomplish that.
 
Coler, I apologize for my manners, welcome to the board! Also, I'm not sure I answered your original question. A lot depends on the habitat response and what your local population is now. A good production year should give you a 4-6 fold increase over the spring population at best. You first have to produce habitat that will support/promote the increase. If you now support 6 birds and you make habitat that will support 200, you will expect 3 successful hens to make for a population of, say, 21 that fall not counting mortality of the original birds at a 5X increase. If they were all to survive to the following nesting season and you got a 5X increase again, 10 hens may give you a fall population of 70. Carrying that on, with this very good productive rate, and in 3-4 years you could fill your habitat. These numbers don't reflect your situation, but your local PF or wildlife agency biologists should be able to estimate numbers to plug into a simple formula like this to "guess" what your best success might be. What happens is up to the weather and all of the other factors involved in nature. Good luck with your project!
 
I said release CHICKS IN THE SPRING. Not pen raised birds. Buy your young chicks as early as they are ready. Just so they are old enough to feed on bugs and things in nature. Then release them. Let them grow up in the wild your mortality will be far less than with PEN RAISED birds. Your success of breeding will be better also. For they will be more like a wild bird. Of course, release them when the weather is warm enough to sustain their lives, bugs hatches and other food & water. We do it here on a lot of our PUT & Take sites here in Washington. We put the boxes of birds out and come back in a few days to get the boxes and you cannot find a chick close by. I have seen some come out of the box and start to eat bugs. Just like we had put the bugs there for them. Have you seen these commercials on TV for a Surrogator. Well that commercial is basically what I'm talking about. But we have them raised for us in commercial hot houses. Then put them in transport boxes and release.
 
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Really Bob? I would think that without an adult to teach them the chicks would become quick treats for some of the local predators... Do you have any literature on this? Also, thanks for your input Prarie Drifter, I probably wasn't very clear but we do have a lot of brood raising area as well. It is hard to explain how everything is layed out without drawing a map but from everything I have read and from talking with our PF chapter they think we have done a good job. I will have to find out the growth factor but that would be exciting if we could bring back a population that fast. As for our weather, it would be very comparable to Montana. Thanks again for all your input. Regards,
Cole
 
Cole, CHICKS IN SPRING are pen raised birds. I have a file full of studies and they all come up with a 95% mortality loss in 30-90 days with pen raised chicks or adults. The studies that show success are done by the people selling some type of release system, not reliable. The other studies are by colleges.
 
Coler brings up a good question. Is there any way to release wild birds into a new area? I would like to introduce birds to a particular area in Colorado. The area seems perfect and I don't know why they wouldn't survive. Are there programs available that allows for capturing and releasing of wild birds? If not, how else do you ever get a population established?
 
All I can tell you people what we have been doing here for years. I have no documents to share. I don't believe that 95% loss figure. We are getting close to that in survival. I don't know what else to tell you people, I just know what works for us.---Bob
 
Bob are there no predators out there? Even without predators, climate can kill alot of young birds. You should have great hunting in the fall with that survival rate.
 
Well, If it's true,the whole US Pheasant Population started out with a little chineese guy and a few birds, hence the name chineese chicken. Unless its a wives tale. But I have been Raising and releaseing birds now for over 10 years and I know for a fact It has been very successfull. However I have not had that great of luck with the releaseing of chicks at all. We tried that right off but they died too easy, the first storm and they were done.But when we released 6-7 month old fully grown birds they have all flurished. It only took a couple years at each site and no killing them and you saw the difference big time. then the key was to not over harvest. Also to start out I will take the dogs for runs and flush as many as I can find, this made them weary of the suroundings and that is all it took besides the hard work raiseing them. It takes very little time for the birds to become wild, after a week and your preasure chaseing them they catch on fast. Anyway good luck and it is nice to see you giving it a go A.. :cheers:
 
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Coler; After reading this all all the way through for second time. I have come to this conclusion. Whether to plant chicks or grown birds goes by the weather in your area. I have lived in Minnesota for 36 years. I have lived in Washington for 30 years and a few other places along the way. The point is here in Washington we do not have the storms Minnesota does in the late spring and summer. We are in the High Desert Country, our weather in the late spring and summer is pretty dry and if we do get rain it is warm and gentle. We do get heavy storms on occasion. But they are rare, not like other places.

So I suggest; study your weather and figure out which would be best for you. Really no body can tell what your results will be. Maybe your Wildlife Dept. can give you some help. But they are the only ones I can think of.---Bob
 
Hey Guys,
Thanks again for all your input. I will tell you how the project comes along and what I plan to go with.
Regards,
Cole
 
bobeyerite said:
Please check out this link This is basicly what we are doing. Yes we do have predators. But they just do well for us.

Here is the link it explains what we are doing but without the surrogator

http://www.wildlifemanagementtechnologies.com/surrogator.html
Click to expand...

Bobeyerite,

I've seen the surrogator before, and it looks great. You say you are doing the same thing, but without the surrogator. Could you provide additional detail? Are you using any equipment, or are you just buying chicks and releasing them? Do you supplement their feed? How old do you think they are when you release them? The more info you could provide, the better. I'm sure many of us are interested in what you have to say.

Thanks,

Chad
 
We are buying the chicks from a commercial breeder and raiser. He has all the stuff to get the chicks ready for the field. As I understand it, they are about 5 weeks old and ready to be on their own. We just plant them and they come out of the boxes eating bugs and stuff and they do well. The only time we feed them is in the winter months when feed is hard to find. Like I said we just plant them and they eat and get along well. We check back usually in a day or 2 and they are gone. But if you going looking with a dog you will find they have scattered all over the field. Remember one thing we are in High Desert Country and it is dry and warm. They have plenty of sage brush for cover so they can get in under that stuff for protection. Question; ever hunt Sage Brush for pheasant? I do it every fall.---Bob
 
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Thanks for the info. I've hunted the sandhills of eastern Colorado and there is some sage out there. Although I usually stick to the crops and grass fields.

I'll have to give your method a try. Colorado is pretty warm by May; June should be more than warm enough. If I end up trying your method, I'll report back with updates.
 
The Thank you C.B. I hope you are as dry as we are at that time of year. If you are there should be some success. Good Luck and I'll look forward to that report.---Bob
 
If you look at the natural ups and downs in Pheasant population, you will see that numbers can increase very rapidly given the right habitat and favorable weather. Even just a few wild birds will find your place and breed like crazy if conditions are good. Doubling in a year is not unreasonable. 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128....until you run out of room. In prime habitat 100+ birds per section is easily possible.
 
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