Pheasant habitat

[Brian662]

Wanted to start a thread for those in the pheasant's "native" range of the upper Midwest. I'm aware they aren't a native bird but they have adapted to the region over the course of the past 100+ years and thrive under certain conditions.

At my place in MN, we have a small wild population of pheasants. One of my goals when I started doing habitat work was that one day I'd be able to shoot a limit of roosters on my 70 acre home property before my dog passes on. This year on one deer hunt I had 8 encounters with roosters although some may have been the same bird. Took my dog for a walk on new year's day and we only put up one rooster and one hen before he got cut up from some old cattle fencing.

My main improvements have been planting NWSG, including about 15 acres of switchgrass. I have 2.5 acres of pollinator plantings and about 8 acres of tall grass CRP. Also have started and caged many spruce trees and shrubs that are finally starting to show signs of being habitat beneficial. I normally plant about 4-5 acres of food for the deer that pheasants and turkeys also enjoy. I have a few solid tree lines, but they don't have much of any thermal cover like a shelter belt would have..I want to plant some conifers to thicken them up a bit.

Everything takes time but I believe the improvements have made a good impact. When we bought our place I would hear an occasional cackle in the spring but never saw any good numbers.

What have you guys done to improve habitat?

My dog is 9 years old and has 2-3 good years left, so I think it'll be close for us to reach that goal.

Love getting these pics in the fall.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

Put out some coon traps in this warm stretch to give the hens a better chance next spring.

It sounds like you have good nesting cover, so adding winter thermal cover would be a solid next step. A few rows of shrubs followed by a few rows of spruce will be a great wintering spot in a decade. Especially if you have a southern exposure.

On my se mn home 40 I added 8 acres of crp and have been cutting junk trees on field edges to get the existing plum thickets to expand. We see a few pheasants now and we didn’t 10 years ago.

Having standing corn last all winter also will be a huge boost. The deer usually eat my standing corn in early winter, but the pheasants still hang around since the thick winter cover is better than neighboring properties.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

Brian- ever see any quail or Hungarian partridges on your se mn place? My new Fillmore county property is close to where quail have been seen in recent years. I’d really like to see one in the wild. 25 years ago we used to shoot Hungarian partridge every year while pheasant hunting where I grew up northeast of Rochester. They are a very rare site these days.

 

[bigboreblr]

Hows the hawk population? Helping out on the shrub cover on field edges is a good idea. Id even throw some fertilizer at them. Perhaps culling some of the succesional trees shading shrub cover might help too.

I helped out with my towns club and a hunting preserve with pheasants. What kind of food plot equipment do you have? Wheat has been pretty good.

Switchgrass good for pheasants? I know the turkeys don't like it that thick. What kinds of grasses / weeds grow in your area? The spots I have worked on were for release birds, but they stayed on property, expecially around wheat and goldenrod spots.

Making brush piles might be helpful to hen nesting too.

 

[Brian662]

Brian- ever see any quail or Hungarian partridges on your se mn place? My new Fillmore county property is close to where quail have been seen in recent years. I’d really like to see one in the wild. 25 years ago we used to shoot Hungarian partridge every year while pheasant hunting where I grew up northeast of Rochester. They are a very rare site these days.

I have not seen either of those in this area, but they aren't the type of birds you see too often unless they are plentiful.

 

[Brian662]

Put out some coon traps in this warm stretch to give the hens a better chance next spring.

It sounds like you have good nesting cover, so adding winter thermal cover would be a solid next step. A few rows of shrubs followed by a few rows of spruce will be a great wintering spot in a decade. Especially if you have a southern exposure.

On my se mn home 40 I added 8 acres of crp and have been cutting junk trees on field edges to get the existing plum thickets to expand. We see a few pheasants now and we didn’t 10 years ago.

Having standing corn last all winter also will be a huge boost. The deer usually eat my standing corn in early winter, but the pheasants still hang around since the thick winter cover is better than neighboring properties.

Not much for coon around my place right now because so much of the property is NWSG broken up by tree lines/fence rows.

I've got a few 10-12' tall ERC scattered about and more are growing, but the deer thinned them out pretty hard last winter in that deep snow.

I can't seem to keep corn past December around here, it's not rare to have 30+ deer on my plots if the weather is right during muzzle loader season, they vacuum the corn and beans up pretty quick.

 

[Brian662]

Hows the hawk population? Helping out on the shrub cover on field edges is a good idea. Id even throw some fertilizer at them. Perhaps culling some of the succesional trees shading shrub cover might help too.

I helped out with my towns club and a hunting preserve with pheasants. What kind of food plot equipment do you have? Wheat has been pretty good.

Switchgrass good for pheasants? I know the turkeys don't like it that thick. What kinds of grasses / weeds grow in your area? The spots I have worked on were for release birds, but they stayed on property, expecially around wheat and goldenrod spots.

Making brush piles might be helpful to hen nesting too.

Pheasants thrive in switchgrass, especially on edges and pockets. It really keeps them safe from overhead predation. You're right about the turkeys though, they don't seem to spend much time in there.

Plenty of giant ragweed, common ragweed, goldenrod and other beneficial weeds/ forbs in the soil over here. Couple that with the pollinator plantings and I have a pretty good pheasant recipe started I think.

 

[somich]

Put out some coon traps in this warm stretch to give the hens a better chance next spring.

It sounds like you have good nesting cover, so adding winter thermal cover would be a solid next step. A few rows of shrubs followed by a few rows of spruce will be a great wintering spot in a decade. Especially if you have a southern exposure.

On my se mn home 40 I added 8 acres of crp and have been cutting junk trees on field edges to get the existing plum thickets to expand. We see a few pheasants now and we didn’t 10 years ago.

Having standing corn last all winter also will be a huge boost. The deer usually eat my standing corn in early winter, but the pheasants still hang around since the thick winter cover is better than neighboring properties.

This time of year, with the wet snow/rain we've had here, my CIR gets flattened for awhile.

Your post on corn got me to thinking about strips of corn between or intermixed with the CIR to provide some support to the CIR to prevent a total collapse and provide more protection.

Any ideas?

 

[SD51555]

Back when dairy farming was still a thing, there were pheasants everywhere, and it wasn't uncommon to see dozens in a group, and in winter, even hundreds. Back then, there was more alfalfa, more small grains grown, and manure was spread every day or every other day all winter long, and that was also full of food on top of the snow.

If I had a checklist for a total ecosystem for pheasants, it would include:

*Durable winter cover in big blocks like spruce, shrubs, cattails, standing corn
*Clean water like a pond far enough away from spray drift or runoff
*Spring nesting cover, we always mowed pheasant nests cutting first crop hay. I'm guessing rye would be good too.
*Summer high-bugging grounds. Clover, alfalfa, small grains, flowers, good broadleaf weeds (ever look in a grain wagon when the combine empties oats into it?)
*Good bugging grounds that aren't sprayed. I fear birds chowing down on crickets and grasshoppers killed by insecticides has had a bad effect on bird health.

If I lived on the place, I'd trap every day I could and in a big way. What a way to get in your steps each day! I'd build a compost bin and throw every damn critter in it and keep filling with wood chips. When it's full, build another and keep going. After it's been capped for a year, stir it up with a skid steer and spread it around your trees. Turn them nest raiders into assets.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I used to pheasant hunt a lot in SE MN and the best pheasant spots had quite a bit in common. CRP acreage (or abandoned overgrown pastures) was always the biggest factor, and it was pretty rare to see good pheasant numbers without nesting cover in the neighborhood.

The most consistent spots had some solid winter cover to prevent the birds from getting wiped out in a bad winter. In our area, this was typically small wetlands, shrub thickets, railroad track right of ways or windbreaks planted around farm sites. Southern exposure was helpful as well. We occasionally had decent pheasant hunting on areas with a bunch of CRP and very little winter cover, but that was more boom or bust since a bad winter would wipe most of the birds out. The CRP mix we had back then was the crappy, short CRP blend and not the better looking native grass and switchgrass blend occasionally found today.

The best pheasant areas were always in ag dominated areas away from bigger wooded areas - good pheasant habitat 1/4 mile away from woods always seemed to hold more birds than the same cover directly adjacent to woods. A couple acres of woods in ag dominated areas was fine, but the larger the adjacent woods the fewer the pheasants in general even if CRP was available. I'm assuming this was related to predator numbers living in the woods.

We had really good pheasant populations in the 90's and early 00's even though food plots were non-existent at that time. I think having standing corn adjacent to winter cover is a great idea.

 

[bwoods11]

I have a pheasant farm in Minnesota. It was a crappy Sandy soil farm that had some Drainage ditch cover and cattail slough. We planted a lot of trees, spruce, cedar, plum, dogwood, chokecherry—Shelterbelts and also native grasses. Ponds were dug, and other small improvements.

It took about 2-3 years to see the birds take off from maybe 6-10 pheasants total , to well over a 100. We shot over 30 roosters for 3 years in a row.

It’s grown up nasty thick now. Some natural willows, dogwood is crazy on this farm. They love the winter cover . Birds move in during cold temps.

A 5-8 row shelterbelt or windbreak near a cattail slough is a great combo . L shaped with sorghum right by it—can’t be beat !

(There are few nice bucks on it as well)

A few pics…

 

[Brian662]

Are you planting sorghum out of that Jd 71 planter? What metering cups get used for that? I've only planted corn and beans with mine.

 

[bwoods11]

Are you planting sorghum out of that Jd 71 planter? What metering cups get used for that? I've only planted corn and beans with mine.

Yes. Not sure it’s my sons tractor. I could ask him ?? We scratch by with minimal equipment on plots . I’ve actually had great luck broadcasting and dragging in sorghum.

 

[Brian662]

Yes. Not sure it’s my sons tractor. I could ask him ?? We scratch by with minimal equipment on plots . I’ve actually had great luck broadcasting and dragging in sorghum.View attachment 62124

How many acres are you working with? Looks like the perfect blend of habitat.

No cattail marshes over here, but I should be well on my way with the winter cover, grasses, and shrubs. I'll have to give the sorghum a try one of these years, do your deer spend time in there?

 

[bwoods11]

Brian… 148 acres. Yes deer will bed in the sorghum, and feed in it late season. We had a really big buck on this farm last year . So we decided to not pheasant hunt it (until late December) . Didn’t want to bump him .

This is him .

 

[Tree Spud]

I have a pheasant farm in Minnesota. It was a crappy Sandy soil farm that had some Drainage ditch cover and cattail slough. We planted a lot of trees, spruce, cedar, plum, dogwood, chokecherry—Shelterbelts and also native grasses. Ponds were dug, and other small improvements.

It took about 2-3 years to see the birds take off from maybe 6-10 pheasants total , to well over a 100. We shot over 30 roosters for 3 years in a row.

It’s grown up nasty thick now. Some natural willows, dogwood is crazy on this farm. They love the winter cover . Birds move in during cold temps.

A 5-8 row shelterbelt or windbreak near a cattail slough is a great combo . L shaped with sorghum right by it—can’t be beat !

(There are few nice bucks on it as well)

A few pics…View attachment 62116View attachment 62117View attachment 62118View attachment 62120View attachment 62121View attachment 62122View attachment 62123

B ... Did you stocks the pheasants to get them started?

 

[Mortenson]

Hey bwoods did you guys connect with the buck? Or what happened to him?

 

[bwoods11]

B ... Did you stocks the pheasants to get them started?

No
There was cover nearby and they moved in and started to reproduce. I would mow in August and see momma and a bunch of babies in the grass ahead of me.

It’s not South Dakota, but western MN had pretty good pheasant hunting !

 

[bwoods11]

Hey bwoods did you guys connect with the buck? Or what happened to him?

No we did not. He’s alive though . Last we heard. Could be huge this yr! This nice winter will help I think ! Max his rack out !!

 

[Brian662]

Got started on the nest predators. Had some coon cuffs out since Sunday. Pretty proud moment for me, he handled the .22 well and made a clean kill.