# Pheasant



## Newt2 (Mar 30, 2021)

Are there any wild pheasants in GA or just game farm type?


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## blood on the ground (Mar 30, 2021)

Newt2 said:


> Are there any wild pheasants in GA or just game farm type?


I don't know of any and I have been in North West GA all my life.
South GA could be a different story IDK.


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## Nicodemus (Mar 30, 2021)

Any pheasant you see here in South Georgia is a release bird from a shoot or plantation. They can`t raise nor survive down here.


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## Para Bellum (Mar 30, 2021)

No wild pheasants in GA.


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## NCHillbilly (Mar 30, 2021)

Nope. Closest thing is grouse in the north GA mountains. They have always been called "pheasants" by mountain folks. But no wild ringnecks anywhere in the southeast.


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## Newt2 (Mar 30, 2021)

Sad. They've been hunted out of existence in most parts of the country.


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## Para Bellum (Mar 30, 2021)

Newt2 said:


> Sad. They've been hunted out of existence in most parts of the country.



To my knowledge, there were never pheasant in GA.  Go to South Dakota.  There’s plenty there.


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## Dbender (Mar 30, 2021)

Newt2 said:


> Sad. They've been hunted out of existence in most parts of the country.


This is false.


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## Newt2 (Mar 30, 2021)

Dbender said:


> This is false.


Not in the states I've hunted. I should have clarified that it is "open season non-existence."


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## Nicodemus (Mar 30, 2021)

Newt2 said:


> Sad. They've been hunted out of existence in most parts of the country.




You do know that they are not native to this continent, don`t you?


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## NCHillbilly (Mar 31, 2021)

Newt2 said:


> Sad. They've been hunted out of existence in most parts of the country.


There are few places in this country outside the upper midwest that they are capable of reproducing and maintaining populations without a lot of stocking. They haven't been hunted out of existence. They are just a Chinese bird that can't survive on their own in most of our country. Many, many attempts have been made by about every state in the southeast to establish them, but they have never took off at all, except for a couple of small, unstable populations on the Outer Banks of NC.


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## Ruger#3 (Mar 31, 2021)

I miss hunting them, Ohio had a pretty good population of them when I lived there.


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## SLY22 (Mar 31, 2021)

NCHillbilly said:


> There are few places in this country outside the upper midwest that they are capable of reproducing and maintaining populations without a lot of stocking. They haven't been hunted out of existence. They are just a Chinese bird that can't survive on their own in most of our country. Many, many attempts have been made by about every state in the southeast to establish them, but they have never took off at all, except for a couple of small, unstable populations on the Outer Banks of NC.



What is it about the southeast that keeps them from surviving?


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## fishfryer (Mar 31, 2021)

SLY22 said:


> What is it about the southeast that keeps them from surviving?


Things that like the way they taste


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## NCHillbilly (Mar 31, 2021)

SLY22 said:


> What is it about the southeast that keeps them from surviving?


Just not the right habitat. Probably too warm, wet, and wooded.


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## Newt2 (Mar 31, 2021)

In one state I know of, over hunting wiped them out. The limit was 2 a day and 6 in possession. I went to one guy's house mid-afternoon on opening day and saw 26 spread out on the garage floor.


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## fishfryer (Mar 31, 2021)

The state says simply too many predators they even tried jungle fowl once in Oaky Woods varmints quickly took care of that


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## Nicodemus (Mar 31, 2021)

I`ve heard that there is something in the soil and-or climate that won`t allow them to hatch and raise down here. I know that about 500 grown ones escaped from a hatchery in Webster County back in the mid 1990s that bordered the cub I was in. They all lasted less than a year. I`d see one from time to time, but they didn`t make it and never raised.


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## Darkhorse (Mar 31, 2021)

I shot a couple in Macon county when I was 18 or so. I was going to a dove shoot and one crossed the road. I had  to chase it down in a soybean field because it was a real runner. That same year we were quail hunting and the dogs pointed, we walked in to flush the birds and large covey flushed along with a long tailed pheasant.
Turned out some Mennonites had raised some and turned them loose. None survived. All died from natural causes. 2 died from lead poisoning.
I shouldn't have shot them but I was only 18 and didn't really know anything.
I do know they tasted real good.


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## across the river (Mar 31, 2021)

Nicodemus said:


> I`ve heard that there is something in the soil and-or climate that won`t allow them to hatch and raise down here. I know that about 500 grown ones escaped from a hatchery in Webster County back in the mid 1990s that bordered the cub I was in. They all lasted less than a year. I`d see one from time to time, but they didn`t make it and never raised.



This paper goes into some of it.  Page 4 if you are interested.

https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5051&context=rtd


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## GeorgeShu (Mar 31, 2021)

Couple of years ago I saw a pretty ring neck side the road in Bulloch County near Clito just north of Statesboro. I figured he was an escapee from a release shoot.  He was around for about a month, then vanished.


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## Nicodemus (Apr 1, 2021)

across the river said:


> This paper goes into some of it.  Page 4 if you are interested.
> 
> https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5051&context=rtd




Most informative. Thank you for the link.


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## Para Bellum (Apr 1, 2021)

Guess calcium is just as important for eggs as it is antler growth and milk production.


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## fi8shmasty (Apr 25, 2021)

Nicodemus said:


> I`ve heard that there is something in the soil and-or climate that won`t allow them to hatch and raise down here. I know that about 500 grown ones escaped from a hatchery in Webster County back in the mid 1990s that bordered the cub I was in. They all lasted less than a year. I`d see one from time to time, but they didn`t make it and never raised.


I think it is chiggers


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## jdgator (Apr 27, 2021)

Heck. I would happy if my children could just see wild quail in Georgia. When we take things for granted they disappear.


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## lampern (Apr 27, 2021)

The only wild pheasants in the southeast are at the Cape Lookout National Seashore in NC.

Basically on offshore barrier islands


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## NCHillbilly (Apr 27, 2021)

lampern said:


> The only wild pheasants in the southeast are at the Cape Lookout National Seashore in NC.
> 
> Basically on offshore barrier islands


And they are barely existing.


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## Resica (May 15, 2021)

Newt2 said:


> In one state I know of, over hunting wiped them out. The limit was 2 a day and 6 in possession. I went to one guy's house mid-afternoon on opening day and saw 26 spread out on the garage floor.


What state is that?


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## Newt2 (May 15, 2021)

NY


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## Gator89 (May 15, 2021)

Para Bellum said:


> Guess calcium is just as important for eggs as it is antler growth and milk production.



Yes, calcium in a bird's diet is necessary for egg shell development.


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## Resica (May 15, 2021)

Newt2 said:


> NY


Never heard that before.


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## Lilly001 (May 15, 2021)

I remember hunting them in Pa in the early 70's.
As I recall they were most all hatchery birds stocked by the state game commission.
It was a lot of fun.


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## Resica (May 15, 2021)

Lilly001 said:


> I remember hunting them in Pa in the early 70's.
> As I recall they were most all hatchery birds stocked by the state game commission.
> It was a lot of fun.


I don't know where you were hunting in Pa. in the early 70's but we had millions of wild birds then. SE Pa. was the best hunting in the nation for pheasants, period!!


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## Newt2 (May 15, 2021)

Resica said:


> I don't know where you were hunting in Pa. in the early 70's but we had millions of wild birds then. SE Pa. was the best hunting in the nation for pheasants, period!!


Just like NY. They were all wild birds. 20 years later, they are all game farm birds.


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## Lilly001 (May 15, 2021)

Resica said:


> I don't know where you were hunting in Pa. in the early 70's but we had millions of wild birds then. SE Pa. was the best hunting in the nation for pheasants, period!!


I was near Harrisburg.
I do remember driving up on fields with hundreds of birds just dropped off by the hatchery trucks.
In some areas I'm sure there was wild stock, but the ones I hunted were mostly really dumb hatchery birds.
But I will agree it was a hoot to hunt them.


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## GeorgeShu (May 17, 2021)

I grew up on a dairy farm in western NYS Near Attica.  It was not uncommon to flush wild pheasants while cutting hay, the time of year coinciding with nesting season.  Birds were there and a few locals hunted them as well in the fall.  The cackle of the males could be heard in the mornings.
Attica if you recall was the place of a nasty prison riot.  Attica prison also had a large working farm manned by the inmates prior to the riot. The farm produced much of the food used at the prison.  That farm also had a large pheasant operation growing out birds that were released in the fall.  After the riot, the farm was closed down and all operations ceased including the pheasants.  That would have been in the late 1960s pushing 1970 if I recall correctly.


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## bany (May 17, 2021)

The birds have always been raised and released. Some areas have ideal habitat and they reproduce, most areas do not. The habitat has gone away in a lot of areas. My take is they have become tamer and tamer at the farm. So they have no “flight” instinct. Possibility the government took the wild out of them? In the 80’s the stock birds in NW Pa could be found the next morning right where they sat. Either you had a pile of feathers or you had to kick the bird.


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## antharper (May 20, 2021)

I wonder if they are native in Korea , I spent a few weeks there and seen several . Actually about the only wildlife I seen


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## mguthrie (Jun 14, 2021)

Ruger#3 said:


> I miss hunting them, Ohio had a pretty good population of them when I lived there.


We had a few in N.E. Ohio in the late 70’s early 80’s. I hunted them some. Even killed a couple back then. ? I wasn’t much of a wing shot when I was a kid. We would walk fallow fields and push them to a corner. They would rather run than flush when being pushed. It was always a rush when you got close to the fence anticipating the flush. There was more than one time we got there and nothing came up, for about 30 second then they would bust out of there cackling all the way. It would make you mess your britches


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## mguthrie (Jun 14, 2021)

antharper said:


> I wonder if they are native in Korea , I spent a few weeks there and seen several . Actually about the only wildlife I seen


I’m sure they are. There’s several different species. I had a mounted silver pheasant give to me when I got my first apartment.


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## Ruger#3 (Jun 14, 2021)

mguthrie said:


> We had a few in N.E. Ohio in the late 70’s early 80’s. I hunted them some. Even killed a couple back then. ? I wasn’t much of a wing shot when I was a kid. We would walk fallow fields and push them to a corner. They would rather run than flush when being pushed. It was always a rush when you got close to the fence anticipating the flush. There was more than one time we got there and nothing came up, for about 30 second then they would bust out of there cackling all the way. It would make you mess your britches



They can hunker down and hide under a broke over corn stalk. We'd be rabbit hunting and the dogs would act sillly, whimpering but couldn't run it like a rabbit. Stomp around in the briars and up would come a pheasant cackling.


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## buckmanmike (Jun 15, 2021)

I remember as a child my grandfather buying 3 pairs of pheasants to release on his land. We saw them for a few months and then they were gone.  1960's


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