Thanks !! Looks good !!

That's gunpowder you smell. !! The best perfume in the world !

I would love to see a viable reference citation on this one. As a Biology and Zoology teacher I have never heard of this before and I don't for a second believe it to be true. Turkeys eat seeds, grasses and bugs. Period. If there is a trusted source for this information I would sincerely be interested in reading it if you could share it.

Thanks.

Like I already said, there are brushy fence rows everywhere around here. Everywhere you look is the type of cover that people keep parroting is gone. It's not gone here, never has been, and there are no birds at all. And fields are never cut at ground level here other than the odd one where the farmer wants a silo of silage.

I completely disagree with you. Maybe it has nothing to do with farming practices in your area but in many areas it does. I used to live in an area surrounded by farms. The clean farming practices those farmers have employed over the last four decades or so has almost completely eliminated any type of cover. I used to drive the area between my house and the nearest small town after harvest time and it was thousands of acres of barren landscape. There wasn't enough food or cover out there to support a handful of field mice, let alone a breeding population of pheasants, or rabbits for that matter.

Other areas have better cover and better populations of small game. But clean farming techniques and the trend to bury brushy fencerows and create a few huge fields out of dozens of small ones has most definitely had an impact.

It is certainly not the only reason but it is a piece of the puzzle that is the disappearance of wild pheasants in this state.

Pheasants are not a native bird of North America, which most people know. They need to be stock in the snow belt because there no gravel for their Gizzard.

Sometimes it isn't always wrote in books until it's too late. Alot can be learned from people on the land over book writers.

(not saying he's correct, just not dismissed that easily to me.)

Plenty of good habitat around here... And still they do not survive. Very few grouse either. Personally I blame it on possums. But there's probably a bunch of factors. Our possum population is sometimes hard to believe. And I'm sure they eat every ground nested egg they can find, right along with the raccoons.

But as far as the pheasants, most of them don't last a week. I think that far more are killed by predators than humans.

In my opinion there is no one single reason for the disappearance of wild pheasants in this state but rather a series of events that led to their decline and eventual extirpation.

Speaking only about southeast PA (the area I've hunted for five decades) and in no particular order:

1. The 1972 amendment to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to include raptors thereby making it a federal crime to kill them. We saw a dramatic increase in their numbers in a few short years.

2. The advent of hybrid hay species (alfalfa, timothy, clovers) that grew faster and allowed early cuttings that coincided with pheasant nesting. Hen pheasants would not leave the nest and were often killed by the sickle bars or crushed beneath the tires.

3. The avian flu outbreak of 1983-84 that caused the deaths of millions of chickens. I am certain it was transmitted to pheasants. Those were the years the already low pheasant population really crashed.

4. The advent of clean farming techniques.

5. The increase in predators; avian predators due to federal protection and other predators due to tumbling fur prices beginning in the late seventies and continuing to this day. There's just not as many folks out there killing fox, coyote, possum and coon as there used to be.

6. A combination of less cover and increased predation.

As to why they don't propagate now, I dunno...

I do know the Wild Pheasant Recovery Areas gave them every chance, but have pretty much been complete failures.

Pheasants nest in grass/hay fields .Not in the woods like turkey do. So you need undisturbed grass fields for them to lay their eggs and hatch them .That cover must be there in April and still be there in June /early July It takes about 23 days for the eggs to hatch . And on average the hen will lay about 10 eggs .The mating process starts near to the end of April . And the egg laying during the month of May . The hen does not start sitting on the eggs until she is finished laying .That way they all hatch on the same day .It generally takes 15 to 18 days for her to lay 10 eggs . So add the 23 days to hatch on the end of the egg laying day .Most hatching occurs in mid to late June . But sometimes if something happens to the nest the hen will renest . Today many farmers do not have livestock so they do not raise a hay crop .And farmers that have hay are mowing their hay during the month of May Add to that the double cropping of soybeans into harvested barley and wheat fields which can serve as a nesting area for some pheasants . The average life span of the wild ringneck is 3 years So if a hen hatched this year has a failed nesting next year she has one more chance to reproduce before she is no longer alive . If the bio fuel industry can convert switch grass in fuel instead of using corn than the production of switch grass will pay farmers to plant it . That will be the undisturbed nesting that pheasants need to reproduce .Driving through farm country in mid summer and seeing all the cover that is there is not the problem It is the lack of cover when the nesting is happening in April /May that has reduced the bird population to near zero . Along with the pheasant which is a non native bird ; the population of ground nesting song birds are among the fastest declining birds in North America . Meadow Larks ,Bob O Links ,Henslow Sparrows are some that are declining at a rapid rate to name a few . Lack of nesting cover is what is causing the problem

I realize it’s not the answer for the state, but for yourselves, go buy some birds. Put em out and have fun and know you didn’t just shoot the last wild (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) in your area. We buy 20 at $10 per. Generally shoot less than half. And for gosh sakes shoot Grandad’s old double...it’s just better

I know that turkeys will eat Grouse and Woodcock chicks why not Pheasant chicks also?

I have no doubt that turkeys eat chicks on occasion, I think it's pretty well known that they do sometimes. But to say they're the reason for the population decline of any bird is just ridiculous.

To me cover is one of the most important ingredient for success with pheasants. I just back from the ranch and seen well over 100 birds. The cover is thick and heavy timber areas, when they get up it is almost impossible to get a good shot. I haven't hunted them in years but my son takes a few each year.

So the loss of CRP, slash and burning of tree belts and fence to fence farming has nothing to do with the decline in the bird numbers then? Interesting

2 falls ago, i was in a job on i80 in around white haven, it was a month long road construction job... I couldn’t believe all the dead pheasants on i80... they must of released them in state land close by... they where everywhere... I did see some live ones.. seems like poor thinking to me to let them go near a heavy highway

Oh, Ya it does, and you know how important it is also Law Dog, living in pheasant country, right?

Don't need predators to whack the birds when they are haying during the hatch if it's all planted and hayed just where do they raise them chicks then! LOL

FYI you can have all the habitat and not the right type of diet and they will not do well with cover alone the same with quail that's why they don't live just anyplace add some pesticides to the mix and the results is less birds.

Pen raised birds have no home territory When they are released they may fly off in a direction and land . When they flush again they fly on to another landing spot . Some years ago the PGC did a study and they found that some released birds ended up quite a distance from where the original release point was . The birds just fly until they find a spot to land and repeat the process until they end up dead

I agree. I live in Western Pennsylvania and have pheasant carry over on my farm. I don't shoot them and control friends. I have perfect cover and see to it that there is enough grain left around. I have never seen a quail in PA. In my area all the grapevine thickets are gone. I believe the logging boom took care of that,I also haven't seen a grouse in years. The turkeys exploded after the game commission STOPPED stocking birds that drowned in rain storms! One last thing for White. I have a Winchester 21and just love to take it for a walk every now and then.