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Ring-Necked Pheasant

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Ring-Necked Pheasant

The typical rooster pheasant weighs just under 3 lbs

Up to 36 inches

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Ring-Necked Pheasant

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

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Ring-Necked Pheasant

Pheasants may fly a mile or more and normally level off at 25 feet.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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2011 2010 2009 Hunting Prospects Map 2008

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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