# I now know why we have so few quail...



## dawg2 (Aug 16, 2009)

Guineas nest pretty much the same way as Quail.  I have a flock of Guineas.  I let 3 hens, 3 different times go broody on their nests.  I lost 2 of them to what I believe were coyotes, because whatever got them ate all the eggs in the same night.

The final nest was by my house.  I figured, no coyote would get her.  Well they didn't.  She hatched her brood.  FIREANTS killed the baby birds, even got into the pipped eggs and killed them before they got out.  This was in less than 48 hours while I was gone.  The birds have no defense whatsoever to fireants....NONE.      They don't get turkey poults as often, because they nest deeper in the woods, unlike guineas and quail....


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## bub commander (Aug 16, 2009)

My wife's grandaddy was a farmer down in SW Georgia for 90 years... he obviously grew up down there hunting wild quail and witnessed there decline first hand. He was under the same opinion as yourself....


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## Nicodemus (Aug 16, 2009)

Bad as I don`t like a guinea, they don`t deserve that kind of fate. Fire ants are a major problem on a lot of things. I`m convinced that if a cow was to drop a calf in a nest, it wouldn`t ever survive.


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## dawg2 (Aug 16, 2009)

atlgolfer said:


> My wife's grandaddy was a farmer down in SW Georgia for 90 years... he obviously grew up down there hunting wild quail and witnessed there decline first hand. He was under the same opinion as yourself....



I am in Central GA, and used to have a pretty good number of quail here.  Used to hear them at the end of the day or in the morning.  I noticed as the fireant mounds increased, they decreased, then disappeared.  I decided to try the Guinea fowl experiment to see firsthand.  My suspspicions were confirmed.  If the yotes don't get them, the fireants will.  It's a crying shame.


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## Buck (Aug 16, 2009)

Yeah, I had birds nest in a flower pot on the porch here last summer.  Kids got a big kick out of watching the mother and the eggs and finally one morning they all had hatched. Kids watched them for a few days and late one evening the chics were screaming like crazy shortly before dark.  I went out there and looked and fire ants were all over 'em.  I hated to break the news to the kids...


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## dawg2 (Aug 16, 2009)

buck#4 said:


> Yeah, I had birds nest in a flower pot on the porch here last summer.  Kids got a big kick out of watching the mother and the eggs and finally one morning they all had hatched. Kids watched them for a few days and late one evening the chics were screaming like crazy shortly before dark.  I went out there and looked and fire ants were all over 'em.  I hated to break the news to the kids...



Those ants are causing far more damage than people realize.  Their impact is probably worse than coyotes or Kudzu..


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## zzweims (Aug 16, 2009)

Dawg--

You are right and you are wrong.  Fire ants are a problem.  No doubt.  Guineas will eat fire ants and fire ants will eat their young.  Coyotes will kill guineas.  They also kill small mammals (possum, raccoon, etc.) which are a greater threat to quail than fire ants.  I've got all of the above on my property and we do our best to live in harmony.  I could definately do without the fire ants. (and small mammals which we trap), but I'll keep my guineas and yotes.


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## dawg2 (Aug 16, 2009)

zzweims said:


> Dawg--
> 
> You are right and you are wrong.  Fire ants are a problem.  No doubt.  Guineas will eat fire ants and fire ants will eat their young.  Coyotes will kill guineas.  They also kill small mammals (possum, raccoon, etc.) which are a greater threat to quail than fire ants.  I've got all of the above on my property and we do our best to live in harmony.  I could definately do without the fire ants. (and small mammals which we trap), but I'll keep my guineas and yotes.



My guineas have never touched a fire ant mound, but they eat nearly everything else.


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## Medicine Man (Aug 16, 2009)

dawg2 did you happen to see that thread I posted not to long ago about that fly they are researching that MAY do away with fire ants? I have NO IDEA what causes the decline in quail population but fire ants makes sense to me just because quail nest on the ground. I've seen how fast they can cover up a dead dove.
How come they have quail populations in Texas though with fire ant's?


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## dawg2 (Aug 16, 2009)

Medicine Man said:


> dawg2 did you happen to see that thread I posted not to long ago about that fly they are researching that MAY do away with fire ants? I have NO IDEA what causes the decline in quail population but fire ants makes sense to me just because quail nest on the ground. I've seen how fast they can cover up a dead dove.
> How come they have quail populations in Texas though with fire ant's?



I saw that special on TV about the parasitic fly that eats the brain of the fireant. I will be one of the first to order some if they make them public.  I would say that in TX, they have a lot more open area, where here in GA, we don't have as much.  Thus, it puts more quail and ants in closer proximity in higher density in GA.


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## dawg2 (Aug 16, 2009)

Nicodemus said:


> Bad as I don`t like a guinea, they don`t deserve that kind of fate. Fire ants are a major problem on a lot of things. I`m convinced that if a cow was to drop a calf in a nest, it wouldn`t ever survive.



I would bet you are right about a calf.


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## maker4life (Aug 16, 2009)

This is what happens to the majority of quail in Ga , and it has a direct relationship with habitat loss . Fire ants may kill some chicks but I don't think they're a huge problem .


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## rhg1964 (Aug 16, 2009)

DDT destroyed the wild quail population before most of you boys were born, bad land management has kept them from ever making a comeback.


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## jimbo4116 (Aug 16, 2009)

I know Fire Ants were here 50 years ago and quail were plentiful.  In fact they are plentiful now you just can't hunt them. They have moved to the swaps and thickets.

Plantations down here that shoot only wild birds have plenty. They have the right habitat and they manage it.

When I came up we hunted quail on fence rows, hedge rows, briar patches in the burnt pines and edges of corn fields.  All those things dissappear in the mid 70s.  Cotton and government ag and conservation programs brought about the end fence rows around the corn fields to keep the cows or hogs in after they were put on the cut corn field. These places don't exist anymore.


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## Medicine Man (Aug 16, 2009)

jimbo4116 said:


> In fact they are plentiful now you just can't hunt them.



OK


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## dawg2 (Aug 16, 2009)

jimbo4116 said:


> ....  In fact they are plentiful now you just can't hunt them. ....



  Plentiful where? And why can't you hunt them?


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## maker4life (Aug 16, 2009)

jimbo4116 said:


> I know Fire Ants were here 50 years ago and quail were plentiful.  In fact they are plentiful now you just can't hunt them. They have moved to the swaps and thickets.
> 
> Plantations down here that shoot only wild birds have plenty. They have the right habitat and they manage it.
> 
> When I came up we hunted quail on fence rows, hedge rows, briar patches in the burnt pines and edges of corn fields.  All those things dissappear in the mid 70s.  Cotton and government ag and conservation programs brought about the end fence rows around the corn fields to keep the cows or hogs in after they were put on the cut corn field. These places don't exist anymore.



Bingo ! On the plantations down here that manage their habitat for quail the populations are now about as high as they've ever been .

With the clean ag practices and tree rows instead of hedge rows quail just don't have a place to avoid avian predation .


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## redlevel (Aug 16, 2009)

rhg1964 said:


> ddt destroyed the wild quail population before most of you boys were born,



*rong*


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## shotgun (Aug 16, 2009)

I have said for years that two things have contributed to the loss of our quail population. One is the fire ants yes we have had them for a long time but not in the magitude we do now and loss of habitat. Where once was corn, soybean and cotton are now pine trees. In the old days farmers had gathered all their crops by Ocotber and every hedge row was burned and alot of the outer woods were controlled burned as well. Not only that when we saw
predators like foxes, cats, coons hawks they were shot!
I had a 90lbs calf dropped in a fire ant bed once that died so yes they can kill a calf. DDT and Methyl Parathon didn't help either.However both of these chemicals have been band but the habitat loss and predators are still on the increase. I remember where we had bird hunted in the past are now in subdivisions.


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## Jim P (Aug 16, 2009)

rhg1964 is right about the DDT, one weekend we found a bunch of covies the next week they sprayed, there was dead birds all over the fields, song birds chickens and quail, I agree habitat is a big reason, but after the use of DDT they just never made a come back.


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## redlevel (Aug 16, 2009)

Jim P said:


> rhg1964 is right about the DDT, one weekend we found a bunch of covies the next week they sprayed, there was dead birds all over the fields, song birds chickens and quail, I agree habitat is a big reason, but after the use of DDT they just never made a come back.



DDT was never said to actually kill the birds.  What DDT supposedly did was make eggshells thin, reducing the reproduction efficiency of birds.  If you saw a bunch of dead birds a week after finding lots of coveys, something other than DDT killed them.

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, starting about this time of year, there was almost a permanent haze of DDT cotton dust in the air.  We had plenty of quail, and almost no mosquitos.  It didn't kill songbirds or our yard chickens, either.


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## coveyrise90 (Aug 17, 2009)

maker4life said:


> Bingo ! On the plantations down here that manage their habitat for quail the populations are now about as high as they've ever been .
> 
> With the clean ag practices and tree rows instead of hedge rows quail just don't have a place to avoid avian predation .



BINGO AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Habitat degradation and loss are the BIGGEST problems for quail. Sure, fireants can put a hurting on them, but they are NOT the reason for declining quail numbers. 

The highest quail populations ever to occur were recorded within the last decade. That's because of the habitat improvements. I have never read about any wild-bird plantation spraying ants (there maybe some that do it, but it's not standard practice). If ants were such a problem, every plantation would be spraying for them just as they trap other predators. But they don't spray.... so what does that tell you??

Adam


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## redlevel (Aug 17, 2009)

coveyrise90 said:


> The highest quail populations ever to occur were recorded within the last decade. That's because of the habitat improvements.





From The Audubon Society:  (I think this data is about 3 years old)
http://stateofthebirds.audubon.org/cbid/profile.php?id=1

#1 Common Bird in Decline
Northern Bobwhite
(Colinus virginianus)

French Name: Colin de Virginie
Spanish Name: Codorniz cotuí


Genus: Colinus
Species: C. virginianus
Order: Galliformes
Family: Odontophoridae	



Rate of Decline: 82 percent in 40 years 

Global Population: 5.5 million 

Continental Population: 5.5 million now, 31 million 40 years ago


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## maker4life (Aug 17, 2009)

redlevel said:


> I don't know where you got that data, but it is obviously wrong.  Maybe you meant the highest populations since restoration efforts began, or the highest populations on a specific plantation.
> 
> From The Audubon Society:  (I think this data is about 3 years old)
> http://stateofthebirds.audubon.org/cbid/profile.php?id=1
> ...



I'm sure Adam was talking about the areas in the quail belt that actively manage habitat for the birds .
http://www.talltimbers.org/gamebird.html


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## BirdNut (Aug 17, 2009)

Gentlemen, I encourage you all to read "On Bobwhite's" by Fred S. Guthery.  Its an interesting book in that he refutes research, in some cases his own from a number of years back.

Regarding fireants:

While fire ants impact quail, high densities of quail populations have been observed in the presence of high densities of fire ants also.  this was from a little discussion on confounding in research (p.46,194, 198).

Guthery also discusses boom/bust in animal populations.  Quail are like my 401K.  After taking a >50% loss last year, I am up about 36% so far this year, but that doesn't mean only 14% more and I will be back at my full nut before the crash.

Essentially, a lot of this book tallies up all the negative impacts to quail-improved grasses, loss of habitat, loss of hedgerows, clean farming, increased predation, fire ants, chemicals, drought, etc. etc. etc. and makes the premise that a decline is from the "system"  perspective where the natural boom and bust cycles are fighting within a decline in overall carrying capavity of the land.

If you start with 100 quail, lose 50% one year, the next year have a 50 % gain you go from 100 to 50 to 75. In fact, in this scenario, it takes 2 boom years to make up for one bust.  Overlay natural population cycles with drought, chemicals, ants, predators, improved grasses, pine trees, subdivisions, ice storms (quail will starve in a matter of a few days) etc. etc. and its not hard to see why the decline in quail has happened, however, its not really due to one single factor, but an overall decline in the system that does not allow quail to produce like they once did.


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## redlevel (Aug 17, 2009)

maker4life said:


> I'm sure Adam was talking about the areas in the quail belt that actively manage habitat for the birds .
> http://www.talltimbers.org/gamebird.html



Yep, sorry, I see that is exactly what he meant.  I'll leave the Audubon Society figures up because they are so revealing of what has happened to Bobwhite populations generally over the last 40 years.

I believe one of the worst things for Bob has been the various "pine tree programs" such as CRP in the south and its forerunners.  Most of the places I used to hunt in the middle 60s to late 70s were planted in pines, destroying quail habitat after the first three years, and they are now on their second, and in a few cases, third crop of pines.  While increased population (human) and loss of habitat to subdivisions, strip malls, etc played a big part in habitat destruction,  a pine monoculture was just about as devastating.


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## birddog52 (Aug 17, 2009)

Looks like a hawk been chewing on that bird


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## birddog52 (Aug 17, 2009)

Another thing that has been to decline of Quail Land practices also cotton spray and Herbicies that Timber companies spray after they clear cut to kill the woody plants. In my area Fescue pastusres and Chicken houses


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## maker4life (Aug 17, 2009)

birddog52 said:


> Looks like a hawk been chewing on that bird



Yep , one of the dogs actually went on point and the hawk flushed and left the bird .


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## Rebel 3 (Aug 27, 2009)

Its a variety of things: Fire Ants, armadillos"eating the eggs", loss of habitat and lack of hedge rows with newer farming practices, planted pines with heavy canopies"easy allows for hawks to pick off the quail".  Armadillos and fire ants were not always in GA.  However, the lack of good habitat is probably the greatest reason for the decline of quail.


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## coveyrise90 (Aug 28, 2009)

redlevel said:


> From The Audubon Society:  (I think this data is about 3 years old)
> http://stateofthebirds.audubon.org/cbid/profile.php?id=1
> 
> #1 Common Bird in Decline
> ...



These declines represent the country as a whole. MANY of the wild bird plantations are experiencing all time high quail numbers. But because of the declining populations nationwide (even within the plantation belt), research is being conducted like never before. We know more now about quail habitat and quail habits than ever before, though there is still much to learn. 


Adam


By the way, the highest recorded population of wild bobwhite quail ever to occur was in 2006 at the Sunny Hill Plantation just north of Tallahassee. The population was over 6 birds per acre! Several other properties experienced slightly lower quail numbers (4-5 birds per acre). Translated into covey finds..... on some days, over 100!


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## coveyrise90 (Aug 28, 2009)

redlevel said:


> Yep, sorry, I see that is exactly what he meant.  I'll leave the Audubon Society figures up because they are so revealing of what has happened to Bobwhite populations generally over the last 40 years.
> 
> I believe one of the worst things for Bob has been the various "pine tree programs" such as CRP in the south and its forerunners.  Most of the places I used to hunt in the middle 60s to late 70s were planted in pines, destroying quail habitat after the first three years, and they are now on their second, and in a few cases, third crop of pines.  While increased population (human) and loss of habitat to subdivisions, strip malls, etc played a big part in habitat destruction,  a pine monoculture was just about as devastating.




Funny how it work out like this. CRP was the best thing ever to have happened to pheasant and quail in the mid-west. Not the case here.

Although, the mature pine plantations do have the potential to be excellent habitat when managed properly (i.e. thinned and burned).

The pine plantation in the background is located on the Quail Country Plantation in Arlington. They've been thinned and are burned on a 2-year rotation. They need more thinning to allow more sunlight to the ground though. But still, the cover is good (excellent in some areas) and this 1/2 day hunt course is home to 3-4 wild coveys.







This pine plantation is located on the Chickasawhatchee WMA (west of Albany). The timber has been thinned to good density for quail and the ground cover looks great.






This pine plantation is located at the Eufuala NWR and has been aggressively thinned to a "pine savannah" allowing full sunlight to the ground. Great for quail habitat, not so good for timber production.






When managed like these tracts, mature pine plantations can offer great habitat.

Adam
This


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## jimbo4116 (Aug 29, 2009)

Medicine Man said:


> OK





dawg2 said:


> Plentiful where? And why can't you hunt them?



I have several coveys of quail on deer leases.  You can take your dog an try to hunt em up if you want to.  I have let several seasoned bird hunters try over the years.  All said they found birds.  Just no opportunity to shoot.

They want hold for a dog and will fly straight the thickest cover.  

I have one deer lease that has some 25 year old thinned pines. We keep it burnt and plant some quail plots. We have a few coveys there but the turkeys are now pressuring the quail for the feed sources.  Turkeys are becoming more in competition for the same food sources as the quail.

Half a dozen true quail plantations here in the county.  Privately owned mostly by out of state folks and yankees, managed just for quail.  They will find 30 to 40 coveys a day. But they only shoot the rise and leave the rest for seed. Only shoot the the 12 bird limit.  No pen raised birds, which in and of themselves have hurt the native population.

Many things have hurt the quail population but loss of ideal habitat has had the biggest impact on quail hunting in my opinion.


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## shortround1 (Sep 7, 2009)

dawg2 said:


> I am in Central GA, and used to have a pretty good number of quail here.  Used to hear them at the end of the day or in the morning.  I noticed as the fireant mounds increased, they decreased, then disappeared.  I decided to try the Guinea fowl experiment to see firsthand.  My suspspicions were confirmed.  If the yotes don't get them, the fireants will.  It's a crying shame.


dawg, i think your theory has some merit. but knowing that turkeys are ground nesters as well as night hawks(whipoor--wills). we do not have a shortage of those birds. it could be a combination of several things.seems like as the deer population grew the quail declined. deer being browsers eat many things, they love beans. i think most quail relied on beggerlice for most of their winter food. you could walk from lagrange to savannah and not pick up a single begger lice on your jeans. as kids if u went to grannies out house, u had to ruin a barlow knife scraping those things off. i can remember walking  the farm and the lice fell like sand on the leaves, we had 4 or 5 coveys on our 20 acre farm, hadn't heard a bob white around here in 10 years


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## redneck_billcollector (Sep 9, 2009)

Ah, one of my favorite subjects.  There are places around here that average 3 to 6 quail per acre, some of the highest amounts of wild birds just about anywhere, and more than the "good ol' days".  The Albany Plantation belt and the Red Hills Plantation belt (they pretty much start where the other one ends) has plenty of wild birds, and as was said earlier, you can't hunt them unless you are invited, I have had the opportunity to hunt a few of these plantations and the hunting was out of this world, 20 plus coveys on an afternoon hunt is the norm.  With that being said, these properties cover hundreds of thousands of acres pretty much continuous and are managed with one thing in mind.....Bobwhite quail (obviously not all one owner, but they are pretty much all neighbors).  I know the average plantation spends more money in one year than any two average families earn in a year in Georgia solely on quail habitat management.  The quail/predator relationship is very complicated and is not as simple as I once thought or what most people think.  Hawks are top of the list on predators, then you have all your meso-predators, and according to the studies, coyotes actually do more good than bad towards quail, they eat many more meso-predators (coons, possums, etc...) than they do quail.  For any of yall interested just google the albany quail project and you will learn more about quail management than you ever wanted to learn.  Here is what I have gathered, long leaf pine / wiregrass savannas burned on a three year growing season rotation.  Rag weed, and more rag weed, up to 20% of your property in it.  Trap meso predators.  Kill fire ants, where ever you find them.  Oh yeah, did I say rag weed??? Old fields over grown with it equal good food, good brood habitat, and good cover.  Warm season bunch grasses, mainly wiregrass, is great nesting habitat, the reason for 3 year burn rotation is you are burning while they are nesting, and three year cover isn't used much for nesting habitat.  Another reason for growing season burning as opposed to late winter burning, which is traditional, is rather obvious, but I never thought about it until I read the studies about it.  One, growing season burning causes wire grass to seed and adds to nesting habitat.  Winter burns have two major negative impacts, they take away the cover when the hawk population is at its highest down here due to wintering coopers hawks, quail mortality goes way up due to hawk preditation.  Also, you do away with hard wood understory with growing season burns, one or two and no more oaks... The cover comes back much quicker with growing season burns too, with winter burns it takes much longer for the habitat to recover.

One other thing the studies say are benificial and all the properties down here do, weekly supplimental feeding via broadcasting on feed courses.  NOT feeders, feeders are bad for quail, the congregate them for predators and viruses are passed along by nose dripping at feeders (wiped out the quail on Campbell farms back in the 70's with feeders, it is a famous quail property down here).


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## coveyrise90 (Sep 12, 2009)

What redneck said...




Good to see you stanger!


Adam


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