Multiple nests per season

[A5 Sweet 16]

One goal of my & Ace's YouTube channel is to educate people about wild pheasants, sometimes correcting misconceptions. I did a little preaching in the video I attached here, but not about this.

Wild hens will have AT MOST one hatch a year, meaning they'll have at most one brood of chicks a year. The only time a hen will renest, producing another clutch of eggs, is if her nest is destroyed, or for whatever reason none hatch. But as soon as one egg hatches, her urge to renest disappears. Even if no chicks survive she won't renest.

So when we hear about a 2nd or 3rd hatch....nope. Didn't happen. Birds that are very young during fall may result from a subsequent nest of eggs, but not a subsequent hatch. Also, eggs are more hearty than new chicks. I believe conditions during & right AFTER a peak hatch period are even more critical than conditions during peak nesting.

In this video, Ace & I got our limit early & then walked a couple hours for fun.

 

[BRITTMAN]

I would agree ….

I am not sure I have seen many wildlife professionals use a term 2nd 3rd hatch… etc.

I have seen and personally use the term late hatch. Late hatch due to hens renesting. Hen pheasants are pretty tenacious nesters.

 

[gimruis]

Yes, late hatch is the term I've used. Quite often there were very small birds in October that had no color. Those were the late hatch birds.

I've seen Canadian geese with goslings and some of them are quite large already. But then the other day I saw some that looked 3 days old. Wild variability amongst the hatches this spring.

 

[lonejackfool]

its also been said for years, that quail are capable of multiple hatches when they lose a nest, and that they will nest multiple times a year when populations are low. capable maybe, generally not true. when we see small birds early season, we tend to think multiple hatch. the quail study in missouri a few years ago showed a very small percentage of birds even attempted to renest. my question is, what triggers mating in wild gamebirds? is it temperature, moisture, maturing of habitat, or insect availability? my area has seen localized extinction of quail for the past 30 years, and the lack of research to find the reason chaps me. sorry if i am taking anything away from your pheasant education post

 

[Glock]

In our area it seems like the 10-14 days after hatch play an important role. The chicks struggle to maintain body temperature during that time. Cold temperatures and more importantly cold rain seems to play a bigger factor in what we see the following fall. Seems like this is a bigger factor than the prior winter.

 

[remy3424]

Looks like A5 has been reading his PF Journals!

 

[A5 Sweet 16]

Maybe the terms "2nd hatch" & "3rd hatch" are more commonly heard in SD, where pheasant hunting is more prevalent, bigger business, & bigger news. For those reasons, we may have higher numbers of misinformed citizens than other states. I've corrected several people over the years, who thought pheasants might have multiple broods of offspring.

 

[Bob Peters]

Maybe the terms "2nd hatch" & "3rd hatch" are more commonly heard in SD

Maybe what they mean by this, is that there's been another hatch in the state owned pens. And so when the stocking truck makes his weekly rounds, people think it's 2nd, 3rd, "late" hatch etc. In this manner some roosters with sizeable nostrils, short tails, and dull plumage get mistaken for a 3rd hatch from a wild hen.

 

[Golden Hour]

I see the terms "2nd/3rd hatch" with some frequency on social media and among guys in the area. A lot of farmers use that terminology as they're the ones who see little chicks in August. To those with a greater obsession with these birds, we're aware that the hen didn't raise multiple clutches, she simply failed at her earlier attempts.

 

[BRITTMAN]

Ducks are similar. There are years when the duckling hatch is late. It is not a 2nd hatch, it is a late hatch from hens that lost their first nest or started a late season nest based on late pond formation (drought ending in early summer).

 

[dawgs14]

its also been said for years, that quail are capable of multiple hatches when they lose a nest, and that they will nest multiple times a year when populations are low. capable maybe, generally not true. when we see small birds early season, we tend to think multiple hatch. the quail study in missouri a few years ago showed a very small percentage of birds even attempted to renest. my question is, what triggers mating in wild gamebirds? is it temperature, moisture, maturing of habitat, or insect availability? my area has seen localized extinction of quail for the past 30 years, and the lack of research to find the reason chaps me. sorry if i am taking anything away from your pheasant education post

Do you have fire ants in your area? I ask because in Georgia we had quail up until the fire ant arrived in the mid 70's. The University of Georgia has done studies that strongly suggest the decline is tied to the fire ants.