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Ring-Necked Pheasant

Ring-Necked Pheasant. Ring-Necked Pheasant. The typical rooster pheasant weighs just under 3 lbs Up to 36 inches. Ring-Necked Pheasant. The camouflaged hen up to 20 inches wings beat more than 3 times per second. 48mph at top speed. Ring-Necked Pheasant.

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Ring-Necked Pheasant

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  1. Ring-Necked Pheasant

  2. Ring-Necked Pheasant • The typical rooster pheasant weighs just under 3 lbs • Up to 36 inches

  3. Ring-Necked Pheasant • The camouflaged hen up to 20 inches • wings beat more than 3 times per second. • 48mph at top speed.

  4. Ring-Necked Pheasant • Pheasants may fly a mile or more and normally level off at 25 feet.

  5. Rugged Game Bird • The pheasant is well equipped to withstand Minnesota’s weathers if adequate cover and food are available. • It is found in both rural and suburban areas. • Pheasants are usually most abundant in farm country containing a mix of row crops, small grains, hay and pasture.

  6. Rugged Game Bird • Intensive farming has altered the ideal habitat mixture. • Corn and soybeans cover the land during the growing season. • In the winter, barren desert of plowed soil. • Diet is corn, wheat, oats, soybeans, and wild plant seeds.

  7. Rugged Game Bird • A pheasant can survive a week without food even in severe weather conditions. • The ring-neck is probably the least susceptible of all game birds to disease and parasites. • Although pheasants are hardy most live less than one year.

  8. Rugged Game Bird • Winter storms, especially sleet followed by strong winds and cold temps can reduce the population by ½ in a matter of days. • Predators such as the red fox, great horned owls, and large hawks take pheasants. • Without adequate winter cover, pheasants seldom survive a severe storm.

  9. Winter Cover • During most winter storms cattail marshes provide good cover. • Other cover in the order of importance is: • Brushy river bottoms, farm shelterbelts with evergreens, brushy deciduous woodlots, and areas of dense shrub cover.

  10. 2011 • 2010 • 2009 Hunting Prospects Map • 2008

  11. Pheasant Numbers • The hen pheasant is the key to the ring-neck populations. • The population can be sustained only when sufficient hens survive the winter and find safe nesting and brood cover. • 1 rooster for 19 hens is enough for reproduction.

  12. Pheasant Numbers • Since the 60’s-70’s population has declined about 90% because of loss of safe nesting cover. • Pheasants usually start nesting in late April or early May. • 2 to 18 eggs are laid over a period of days. • Eggs require 22 – 24 days of incubation. • If hens are forced to abandon their nests, or if it is destroyed they will re-nest up to 5 times

  13. Pheasant Numbers • Re-nesting sometimes produces 50% of the years chicks. • The chicks feed almost entirely on insects for the first month. • They then switch to grasses and weed seeds between five and six weeks of age.

  14. Pheasant Numbers • About 40 –70% of the hens eventually raise a brood. • The remainder are killed by mowers, predators, or just unsuccessful nester. Cover Requirements • Pheasant cover requirements differ throughout the year. • Safe nesting and winter cover are most important.

  15. Necessary Cover • Undisturbed grassland and/legumes provide cover for nesting, brooding, and loafing. • Begin nesting as soon as new plant growth reaches 6-8 inches (peaks mid May) • Today, because so much land in MN has been converted to row crops, un-mowed roadsides may be the most reliable source of safe pheasant nesting cover.

  16. Necessary Cover • Studies have shown that un-mowed roadsides may contain twice as many nests per acre as other kinds of nesting cover. • Safe nesting cover must be undisturbed for at least 35 days and not be mowed until after July 31, if at all.

  17. Aging Pheasants • Normally, 7-9 out of every 10 roosters shot in the fall are young of the year. • Young roosters have dull colored, blunt spurs less than ¾” in length. • Adult spurs are shiny black, pointed, and over ¾” long. • Another method that can be used is to grab the lower beak. If the beak bends the bird is a juvenile.

  18. Habitat Management • Currently MN has an estimated 40,000 square miles of pheasant range. • Any useful pheasant habitat program must provide the basics. • Undisturbed grasslands for nesting, brooding, and roosting. • Large cattail wetlands (10 acres or more) and/or 10 or more rows of shelterbelts with evergreens for dependable winter cover. • Corn or sorghum food plots adjacent to dependable winter cover.

  19. Habitat Management • Since 1983 MN pheasant hunters, 18 years or older, are required to purchase a $7.50 pheasant stamp. • Funds generated by this stamp are used specifically for the Pheasant Habitat Improvement Program (PHIP) • Over 85% of the PHIP funds are used for the habitat improvement programs.

  20. Habitat Management • This include: • Roadside management, cost-sharing with landowners for undisturbed grassland cover, food plots, and large shelterbelts with evergreens. • The remainder is used to encourage changes in federal farm legislation favorable to pheasants and for research and administration.

  21. Habitat Management • Currently the Pheasant stamp generates between $350,000 and $500,000 annually. • The amount of money each county in the pheasant range receives for habitat improvements is based on: • 1. % of land in public ownership • 2. Amount and distribution of key pheasant habitat on private lands and the potential longevity of these areas

  22. Habitat Management • 3. Current pheasant abundance • 4. Land rental rates for agricultural land • 5. Private land use practices • 6. Local government and citizen attitudes toward wildlife • 7. Presence of an active Pheasants Forever or MN Pheasants chapter

  23. Roadside Management • About $100,000 stamp dollars and other wildlife funds go toward enhancing roadsides for wildlife. • There is over 500,000 acres of roadsides in MN’s pheasant range. • Not mowing between April 1st-Aug 1st pheasant numbers can be 2-3 times higher.

  24. Impact of Federal Farm Programs • $20,000 of stamp money is used for development of federal farmland retirement programs. (CRP, CREP) • This is important because studies have shown that farmland retired for more than one year results in an increase in pheasant #’s.

  25. Habitat Management • Minnesota’s pheasant population ranges between 15 and 50 birds per square mile in the fall. • In the 50’s and 60’s, with more habitat, fall populations ranged between 50 and 150 per square mile

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