Pheasant Industry in SD

You’re right Tommy. Contributed to one divorce. Didn’t matter I did it anyway and no regrets. My ex wife said you love your setters more than me. Thought for a minute and said you know you are right. Fortunately I am married to a much more understanding woman. They are priceless and few and far in between.
 
Chessie 67 said:
I made the mistake of getting married on 11/11. I hunt the Kansas opener every year. PS, I am no longer married…
Click to expand...
11/7 for me. I only hunted Kansas at the time. That year it was the first a Saturday of November, so the season didn’t open until the following weekend. No big deal, we hunted second weekend, populations were high, limits on public ground.

Well, populations in the tank now, we hunted second weekend elsewhere, and my buddy always wanted to go to SD that week.

Now we still go, but at the cost of a week in Florida leading up to it. Not all bad, the fishing is good that week.

 
randywatson said:
we've done raise and released bird on our quarter section of wetland bank property here in SE MN since 2019. things we've done and have now implemented. (we are surrounded by black fields) no other large pieces of grassland within 3-4 miles of us.

1) we do 2 batches of 250 straight run birds. 1st batch we raise to 7 weeks old then release them all onto our property. this year our 1st batch was only 150 of the original 250 (had some rain issues) we see a fairly high survival rate into the hunting season. This year we are estimating close to 50%.

2) 2nd batch we release the hens at 7 weeks old and keep the roosters. we then will supplement through out the season if necessary. This year with the hatch on our property and or survival of the 1st batch we have yet to release any of the birds. (100+) waiting patiently for freedom. We do a large hunt on Thanksgiving weekend and will release the majority of them then.

3) food plots. the birds are in them every time and we typically hunt 5 out of the 7 days a week.


with the variability of the hatch each year this ensures we can have successful hunts.

we blinder the birds at 4 weeks old. typically 75% of these have fallen off by week 12-14. (getting caught in the net etc) The birds will at times pick on one and kill it but this year they've behaved themselves.

our biggest predator is owls. usually when they are younger. ie 4-12 wks old. and a mink back in 2020 that slaughtered 25 of them Thanksgiving day. man what a blood bath.

We all know that in order to keep up with demand these guys will always need pen raised birds.

I know what our input costs are per bird if we raise them to "maturity". maybe $7/bird. feed for the 1st 12 weeks is the biggest cost. Then we switch to corn. and when harvest starts we get permission from local farmers to pick up dropped corn, most offer to just fill the bed of our truck for free with shelled corn but we pass.

so when preserves are paying $30/bird for nonblindered from these raisers that's an insane price.
Click to expand...
I am against releasing any birds. Zero.
 
Goosemaster said:
I am against releasing any birds. Zero.
Click to expand...
love that for you. our entire property is surrounded by black fields. so what works for you doesnt work for everyone. hence we supplement. hunted saturday morning we have a foot of snow here. flushed over 75 hens and only hunted 40 of the 160 acres. guess what....those hen will survive the winter with our habitat and food plots that we manage.
 
Got a similar situation but way less acres. It is self sustaining but you can’t just keep blasting birds. We release 20 birds on Thanksgiving, the only day it gets party hunted. Everyone gets to shoot without worrying about killing the wild birds. We never get them all. This is the only day some shoot a gun the whole year. Not sure how many make it to breed or be around next season. I think very few. Over 6 years we’ve done this and the breeding resident population has been steady or increasing. This with shooting around 6 wild birds a year. Sans releasing birds, I would not feel comfortable with 4 guys showing up to hunt, possibly each shooting their 2 bird limit and wounding losing a couple more. That combined with a weather event and other natural mortality could really hurt. In a nutshell shell we get to enjoy a big hunt day, especially the rubes, without smashing the wild pop.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top