Has anyone else heard about the soil type in Missouri not containing enough Calcium to keep pheasants around? With the low calcium the eggs that the pheasants lay aren’t hard enough to hold the weight of the pheasant itself during incubation. I have heard this several times before and just curious if anyone knows if there is fact behind this or if it’s just an old wife’s tale.
All of the data on the pheasant range and calcium, humidity and temperatures are based on old 70 year old data and theories, its all theory.
I have been keeping up with the wild North American pheasant range for a long time. Look at some of my previous threads on the subject.
Lets start off with areas where wild pheasants are now (2010) and where they were absent 40 years ago, in areas where they were told it was too hot, too much humidity and not enough calcium.
Truly wild pheasants don't obey man made precepts. Wild pheasants out of Kansas are expanding southward down the Arkansas river (they naturally follow water corridors) they did not stop at the Kansas borded, they have expanded deep into Oklahoma over the last 40 years and wild pheasants are seen all the way down to Perry, Stillwater, Keystone Lake and wild birds are seen south of Kingfisher and a few over around Sweetwater. If wild pheasants can expand along the trees and creeks along the Arkansas river they can eventually expand in southeast Kansas.
On the Texas side the range is also expanding southward, people around Wheeler, Texas are seeing wild pheasants. Thirty years ago they were told that was not pheasant country. I could go on about many other areas all around Lubbock.
It was hot and humid this summer in all of these areas yet chick pheasants hatched, the key is not grain its nesting cover moisture and timely summer rain.
So how did these theories get started years ago, in my opinion, people would release thousands of fat tame pen-raised pheasants, predators would get fat eating them up, with no sign of the birds at all a year later, they would therefore assume that the pheasants did not survive because of calcium, humidity or high temperatures.
It was really pheasant country all the time they just did not have a wild and alert pheasant smart enough to get away from the predators long enough to reproduce. See articles below on trapping wild pheasants:
http://www.timesleader.com/sports/Rebirth_of_a_game_bird_07-18-2010.html
Read what PGC biologist Coleen DeLong said about the rooster to hen ratio in getting wild pheasants reestablished, a one rooster to one hen ratio is needed in the predator infested real wild wild world. In the spring time wild roosters guard and protect the hens when they are feeding:
http://republicanherald.com/wpra-s-why-change-success-1.872457
This theory was first proposed in the 1930's when pheasants became established in Iowa but not as fast in Missouri . This was based on calcium and lime in old glacier areas. If that theory were true now 2010 we should have an enormous population increase in those areas( Iowa) and no pheasants are all S.W. Kansas or the Texas panhandle.
If calcium for egg theory is true wild turkey and wild quail would not hatch in Florida.
That heat high humidity theory is also 60 years old. I am running out of time I will post again with some solutions needed to expand the wild North American pheasant range. If you "Google Earth" and look down on North America, there is a lot of room for the expansion of the wild pheasant range.
We need to reduce some of the pheasant hunting crowding in W. Kansas, on opening weekend.
