Pheasant habitat

[bwoods11]

Before the snow hit …

 

[Telemark]

If I bought some pheasants and released them in a big field of tall grasses, are they likely to survive?

 

[Turkey Creek]

If I bought some pheasants and released them in a big field of tall grasses, are they likely to survive?

Short answwer .... NO
Will they live for 24 hours, most of them.
Will they live for a week, a few of them.
Will they live through the Winter ........... refer to the short answer.

 

[hillrunner]

If I bought some pheasants and released them in a big field of tall grasses, are they likely to survive?

Maybe someone here has real world experience but I was told it's a bad idea. I was told they would train the predators to hunt pleasant.

 

[SwampCat]

Maybe someone here has real world experience but I was told it's a bad idea. I was told they would train the predators to hunt pleasant.

I dont think predators will have to be trained to hunt them. A couple years ago, we put some pen raised quail out to hunt them with our pointing dogs. These are great flying birds - a lot of them fly out of sight. Took us about 30 minutes to put them out and were going back to get the dogs and rode sxs by where we put one of the first birds. A hawk got up out of the grass. We got out and looked and it had caught a quail and was eating it. Hasnt been a a native bird in that field in 30 years

 

[Turkey Creek]

Maybe someone here has real world experience but I was told it's a bad idea. I was told they would train the predators to hunt pleasant.

No matter what the guy you are buying from says they aren't going to survive in a high enough percentage to create a wild population. Pen raised birds are fed from a feeder from the time they are hatched, there are no predators inside a pheasant pen (unless something just dug in and then watch the slaughter begin). Pen raised birds don't know how to forage for food and avoid predators.

 

[Kooch]

Heck, when I’ve hunted pen raised birds I’ve had to kick half of them to make them fly. It was great for a young pointer though.

I still miss half of them even when I have to kick them though.


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[Telemark]

Thanks for the info. I won't be trying to establish a population then.

 

[Westwind]

My brother in law has raised pheasants the last two years. Last winter was really mild, no snow and he did not hunt them. He had some birds around this spring. I should ask him if he ever saw any chicks last spring on the loose.

He did pheasants and then quail this summer. We are having a harder winter this year and he had been seeing the quail but not the pheasants. With snow on the ground he is seeing the pheasants now.

There are a lot of variables. One important thing is when you release them. It really helps to release them early- a guy I knew that released a lot of birds said to release them as soon as you can start to tell the hens from the roosters. He knew that most still wouldn’t make it through the winter but if you are releasing adult birds like at a hunt club, they aren’t going to make it for sure. I worked with a guy whose dad and uncle raised pheasants. They went so far as to build tree house like pens to “train them to roost in trees” before they released them. He just laughed but said he thought it might work. IDK about that.

Brother in law said the personalities of the bird were different this year from last year. We went over to look at them and he said this group was a lot “wilder” and he couldn’t get as close to them. They definitely wouldn’t go near the food until he walked away.

My brother in law has really enjoyed the whole thing. Maybe that is the way to look at it- hey this might not work but maybe it will be kind of entertaining enough to be worth it a few years.

 

[SwampCat]

Place I buy my quail from has flight pens 75’ long and 25’ wide - maybe 10 or 12’ high. Always hawks and owls sitting around. They will swoop down on he flight pen - something to see 2000 quail all get up at once. The owls are the worst. He said they catch the quail through the net and eat their heads off. Next morning, there are quail bodies laying on the ground in the pen. Of course, coons, possums, skunks, fox, and yote always trying to get in. He has some type of black rubber mat 3’ tall around the bottom of the flight pens and you can see all kinds off muddy paw prints on that black rubber mat.

We put out maybe 60 to 80 birds a year and longest I have had survivors make it - that got away from guns - is into august. I would think a pheasant would be tougher than a quail

 

[Westwind]

Brother in law did heavy woven wire around the bottom and a single hot wire out away from the fly pen

His pen is mostly scavenged stuff, much smaller than recommended. My batting cage in my shed was bigger.

 

[Snoop]

Just got back from South Dakota.
Hunted a friend’s ranch & some public land.
Got our limit every day, one day we had to hunt until dusk. Good times.

 

[SwampCat]

 

[Badgers80]

I have a plot full of Milo but they thought the picked bean field looked better Gearing up before heavy snow and continued cold weather.

 

[Brian662]

We hunted a permission spot yesterday that was holding a lot of birds. It had about 2/3 acre of cover, in the form of spruce trees, surrounded by picked beans and the amount of scratching in the picked bean field was pretty incredible.

 

[Badgers80]

Gotta love those spruce in winter. The bunch I saw cleared the snow off well too. In that pic you can kind of see the untouched snow behind them vs their worked up area.

 

[BuckSutherland]

We hunted a permission spot yesterday that was holding a lot of birds. It had about 2/3 acre of cover, in the form of spruce trees, surrounded by picked beans and the amount of scratching in the picked bean field was pretty incredible.

Drove by one of my friends fields yesterday. Its next to a 4 acres of cattails and tall grass. Its the most pheasants I have seen in many years. There was at least 50-75 birds in the field and more flying back and forth into the cattails. They were scratching hard in the unworked soybean stubble. Looked like SD out there.


Was also in one of the local towns looking at a window and door job on the golf course. We watched 2 very healthy coyotes stroll right through the backyards of all these nice homes in broad daylight. Wish they would come by my deer stand like that.

 

[bwoods11]

I was hunting west of Morris in MN. Closer to Herman on Saturday. There were birds in many fields . Unfortunately this is a bad start to the year ! I was waist deep in snow in some of the cattails already

Now a big wind storm is coming. Not good !