# Quail habitat



## Bellboy (Mar 2, 2014)

Hey need a little advice. I have a 700 acre farm and am trying to help the quail out. I have found 4 coveys on it so I know there is a potential to grow my question is what is best thing to plant along the edges (millet,sorghum,wheat). I plant mostly cotton so I know they don't get much from that. Also does anyone have any experience with bi-color lespodesia. Thanks


----------



## birddog52 (Mar 3, 2014)

BI COLOR IS GOOD IT PROVIDES FOOD PLUS COVER IF PLANTING IN STRIPS OR CIRCLES AND IT EASY TO MAINTAIN CONTACT DNR THEY SHOULD HAVE SOME PLANTING AND BURNING GUIDES FOR QUAIL HABAIAT MANAGEMENT. oUT IN ARKANSAS NOTICED PALNTING ALOT OF NAVITE GRASSES QUAIL MAKING COMEBACK THERE


----------



## Sam H (Mar 3, 2014)

I started started the same thing about five yrs ago as you are thinking of doing...I would suggest establishing a good stand of partridge peas for food and brood cover on some field edges...If you have any longleaf pine stands...try some native warm season natural grasses....they are expensive initially ...But permanent..Blackberry thickets are Always good...
.Grasses and legumes(food)....a good start..A lot of hard work...be patient
Good luck....Hey...Its worth it tho!!!
Sam


----------



## maker4life (Mar 3, 2014)

Leave a twenty foot fallow border around  all your fields. If you really wanted to get fancy plant them in a forbe and legume mix. If you're determined to plant a grain then go with Egyptian wheat. Put it in early to mid July and there will be food all winter.


----------



## Bellboy (Mar 3, 2014)

Thanks guys. On the partridge peas are you planting them in rows or just broadcasting them. What about releasing some bought birds will they take up and breed with wid quail?


----------



## GLS (Mar 4, 2014)

Bellboy said:


> Thanks guys. On the partridge peas are you planting them in rows or just broadcasting them. What about releasing some bought birds will they take up and breed with wid quail?


Put more effort in habitat.  Boxed birds won't survive and you run the risk of introducing diseases to the wild birds.
There are expensive exceptions to the above, but 700 acres will only hold so many birds.  Furthermore, since I assume that most of the 700 is in cotton production, this further reduces the amount of habitat you have and will ever have for wild quail. Tall Timbers Research facility would be a worthwhile contact for consultation and recommendations.  I've had friends and acquaintances spend a ton of money on quail.  One man bought 2500 acres and  had a healthy population of wild coveys, 1 every hundred acres.  It didn't take long to lose them despite food plots, woods burning and the works.  They didn't take hunting pressure kindly and now he relies on early season release which is required each year.  There is little if any survivability from year to year.
Guy de la Valdene's book For a Handful of Feathers is one man's well-written account of his expensive efforts in creating wild quail sustainability on 1000 acres in the Tallahassee area.
Gil


----------



## duckhunter2010 (Mar 4, 2014)

Do NOT plant Bicolor Lespedeza. It can get out of your controlled area and become invasive and it is near impossible to get rid of.


----------



## zzweims (Mar 4, 2014)

With four coveys, the birds are finding food and shelter somewhere.  If you want to keep/increase them, I would focus primarily on nesting and brooding habitat.  Encourage spring growth about 2 feet high; burn to keep ground bare beneath, create 'walking paths' for the chicks, and plant wheat or any other crop that will encourage bugs in early spring.  And don't forget to control your nest predators.

Aline


----------



## jakebuddy (Mar 4, 2014)

478-296-6176 ask for James or Drew they helped me a bunch and their advice is free they are with dnr bobwhite quail initiative


----------



## Sam H (Mar 4, 2014)

Bellboy said:


> Thanks guys. On the partridge peas are you planting them in rows or just broadcasting them. What about releasing some bought birds will they take up and breed with wid quail?



You can broadcast the partridge pea...I did mine in strips , because if you disk it in the spring.....It will spread!!...Caution...Get your seed from "Roundstone Native Seed" in Kentucky...Theirs is(PLS) pure live seed and has a high germination rate...Its the closest thing to wild partridge peas I have seen...You can get a cheaper p pea seed but it grows taller(3-4ft) and doesn't produce as many peas(I learned this the hard way the first time I planted)...Wild p peas are about 2ft tall...better brood cover and more peas!
Like GLS said...concentrate on habitat...bought pen birds are good for put and take shooting/early release hunting.....It Will Not increase your wild bird population...Habitat for cover/nesting and food WILL.


----------



## Bellboy (Mar 5, 2014)

Thanks guys, good info.


----------



## waddler (Mar 7, 2014)

encourage Plum Thickets. build wide hedgerows. spread corn year round.


----------



## Knotwild (Mar 7, 2014)

2 lbs per acre on partridge pea; you almost have to dilute it with fertilizer or some other filler for application. If you plant it thick it grows tall and bears less seed.


----------



## HeadBuckDawg (Mar 7, 2014)

Look up "Alabama Quail Book" on the web.  You can download the PDF.  It is published by the Alabama DNR and is full of great habitat info.  One issue you are going to face is that cotton farming is not a good thing for quail.  First, quail (especially young quail) are dependent on insects for protein.  The pesticides used in cotton farming drastically reduce that insect population.  Second, cotton offers no food value to the birds.


----------



## HeadBuckDawg (Mar 7, 2014)

And you might want to be careful with bicolor.  It is very invasive.  Once it is established is will spread.  I know several folks who planted it years ago when it was in vogue and they are now working very hard to get rid of it.


----------



## GLS (Mar 7, 2014)

HeadBuckDawg said:


> Look up "Alabama Quail Book" on the web. ......The pesticides used in cotton farming drastically reduce that insect population.  Second, cotton offers no food value to the birds.



It used to be that cotton fields had croton(?), a weed, mixed in with the cotton. It was an excellent food seed for dove and quail.  Years ago we had barn burners on cotton fields shooting dove.  With the advent of Round Up Ready cotton, croton is a thing of the past.  On the other hand, pesticide toxicity on wildlife isn't what it used to be, either.  Win some, lose some.


----------



## waddler (Mar 9, 2014)

HeadBuckDawg said:


> And you might want to be careful with bicolor.  It is very invasive.  Once it is established is will spread.  I know several folks who planted it years ago when it was in vogue and they are now working very hard to get rid of it.



Yep. It will take mowing and burning. Grows too high to shoot over. My daddy planted a bunch, and was not happy.


----------



## Knotwild (Mar 9, 2014)

Bicolor? Almost everywhere I have a good stand, I have birds using it. And it is not growing outside of where it was planted.


----------



## waddler (Mar 9, 2014)

Knotwild said:


> Bicolor? Almost everywhere I have a good stand, I have birds using it. And it is not growing outside of where it was planted.



How tall is it? How old is it. Is it in rows? Field borders? Do you knock it down each year? Quail use it regularly, along with songbirds.


----------



## Knotwild (Mar 9, 2014)

waddler said:


> How tall is it? How old is it. Is it in rows? Field borders? Do you knock it down each year? Quail use it regularly, along with songbirds.



I am not sure about the age. It is broadcast, some on woods edges, some within plots in old planted pines. Try to mow it high and burn it every other year. In shaded areas it is about 6 feet and in open sun probably 10 feet. It seems to provide good cover for protection from hawks and owls.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Mar 9, 2014)

Ragweed for brood habitat and warm season bunch grasses for nesting.  Google Albany Quail Project, will put to rest alot of myths about quail habitat.


----------



## Bellboy (Mar 9, 2014)

Thanks. Alabama quail book has a lot of good info and I guess I'll be planting the bicolor because the seed came in yesterday. When's the best time to plant it was thinking about second week in April?


----------



## waddler (Mar 10, 2014)

Knotwild said:


> I am not sure about the age. It is broadcast, some on woods edges, some within plots in old planted pines. Try to mow it high and burn it every other year. In shaded areas it is about 6 feet and in open sun probably 10 feet. It seems to provide good cover for protection from hawks and owls.



That sounds exactly like the situation my Father had. He took to chopping it down when they blocked, so that the hunters could shoot across it. The quail were flushing from the high cover away from the shooters. No question about the usage, it just caused an additional problem for hunting.


----------



## duckhunter2010 (Mar 10, 2014)

waddler said:


> That sounds exactly like the situation my Father had. He took to chopping it down when they blocked, so that the hunters could shoot across it. The quail were flushing from the high cover away from the shooters. No question about the usage, it just caused an additional problem for hunting.



When you start blocking a thick stand of it, you have to blow the radiator out every 45 minutes or so because your temperature will start climbing. And burning just seems to make it mad and grow back even better.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Mar 13, 2014)

I am a fan of native plants that are common to your region.  When you plant food plots for quail with non-natives you have to worry about rain, etc...if you get alot of rain and your food plot does good, the wild food is doing good too and the birds don't use the food plots. There has been some very extensive studies on this down in my neck of the woods and the thought is that planting food plots for quail is almost a waste of money.  broadcast feeding and managing the natural forbs, legumes and grasses is the growing trend down here with feb. discing for ragweed. You used to see all the plantings for quail down here but now you don't, and arguably there are as many if not more wild birds now on these properties than there were 20 years ago.  These are large scale properties devoted to wild birds, but take it one step further....in the old days, quail were everywhere, not because of management for them, but because there were weed strips by all the fence rows and along each field.  Farming wasn't clean and fields were left fallow every few years, that is when quail were everywhere.  When they started to disappear, folks were planting for them etc....yet they did not come back.  Weeds and bunch grass, they need this for food, brooding and nesting. Oh yeah, kill all your sod grasses on your property, that is a dead zone for quail.


----------



## GLS (Mar 13, 2014)

I am aware of one major "wild bird" plantation in your neck of the woods that has adopted the broadcasting feed approach in addition to the management techniques  you mentioned.  If memory serves, milo is broadcast on food trails stretching for over 10 miles.  The spreading discourages predator ambushes as was common when stationary feeders were common and quail were easy pickin's at the feeders. I have a friend who does this on a smaller scale, but  he also maintains food plots.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Mar 13, 2014)

Bluesprings, Nilo, Pineland, Wildfare, Nonami, plus many more are doing this method.  They all take part to some extent in the AQP.  The properties west of Albany do it too.  Not to mention alot of the ones in the Red Hills. This is the approach Tall Timbers is pushing. I know Bluesprings has been broadcasting for over 15 years ( I dated the owner back then) and I know all the other plantations I hunted back then did it too.  This is the method used on almost 200,000 thousand acres in and around Albany (at least a few years back) that all took part in the AQP. I was hunting with the owner's son of Bluesprings a few weeks back and he said they have embraced all of the methods...it is an 8000 acre plus wildbird property. I also think Deer Run is starting this approach also, when John Varner owned it I know he was toying with many of the methods mentioned.  I am fortunate in that I get invites from time to time to hunt many of the wild bird plantations (I am a lawyer over this way) and I can tell you with certainty it is used more than not.


----------



## duckhunter2010 (Mar 13, 2014)

We use the broadcast feeding throughout winter to help feed the birds from an early release program and the growing number of year round "wild" birds on the farm as well. It is the same process you describe RB. Over 2500 acres are maintained through routine burning to encourage the native grasses and legumes, but the Milo spreading seems to help as well.


----------



## coveyrise (Mar 14, 2014)

duckhunter2010 said:


> Do NOT plant Bicolor Lespedeza. It can get out of your controlled area and become invasive and it is near impossible to get rid of.



The state of Florida considers Bicolor a noxious and invasive weed. They were doing cost share eradication programs with land owner to try and get rid of it statewide.It is great cover during the spring but turns into a killing field in the winter.Problem is people actually will spread feed into these leafless patches and the hawks come calling. Look at the Goshawk video made by the BBC on you tube and you can see how well of a killing machine a hawk really is.Will try to get the link.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Mar 14, 2014)

coveyrise said:


> The state of Florida considers Bicolor a noxious and invasive weed. They were doing cost share eradication programs with land owner to try and get rid of it statewide.It is great cover during the spring but turns into a killing field in the winter.Problem is people actually will spread feed into these leafless patches and the hawks come calling. Look at the Goshawk video made by the BBC on you tube and you can see how well of a killing machine a hawk really is.Will try to get the link.



Alot of folks have been fighting bi-color around here for awhile too.  The studies done on courses with broadcasting vs. the courses not broadcast shows that the birds in areas where feed is broadcast spend less time hunting for food and therefore spend more time in cover which lowers exposer to avian predators greatly.  It also spreads less bird scent so the covey find ratio is a little lower.  Of course when you average around 3 birds per acre you have a huge covey find ration even when it is lowered some. 

Burning later in the season than during so-called "burning season" also lowers exposure to avian predators.  During burning season the winter population of hawks hasn't headed back north so coupled with more hawks and less cover you have more predation by hawks.  It also takes the cover more time to recover this time of year from a burn than say one in May...or later.  Also later burns encourage a larger diversity of legumes, forbs and kills back the hardwoods better, because they have little stored in their roots. You also have the legumes blooming and producing later in the summer so you have more food during late summer, the fall and winter months.  Also later season burns cause wiregrass to flower and make seed which does not happen during burning season burns.  Later "lightning season" burns are becoming more popular down here partly because of the better hardwood control but also because Tall Timbers and the AQP are pushing them, they restore pine savannas better than buring season burns. In any event long term fire exclussion is the worst thing you can do, I would not exclude fire for more than 3 years from any given plot, two year cycles and even every year from time to time will create a more quail friendly habitat.

I have said it before and I will say it again, the go to info for quail management is online, google the Albany Quail Project, it is the most indepth study on wildbird management in the Southeast to date.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Mar 14, 2014)

duckhunter2010 said:


> We use the broadcast feeding throughout winter to help feed the birds from an early release program and the growing number of year round "wild" birds on the farm as well. It is the same process you describe RB. Over 2500 acres are maintained through routine burning to encourage the native grasses and legumes, but the Milo spreading seems to help as well.



Is yall's land east of tifton? If so, how are yall dealing with the palmettos?


----------



## Peter D (Mar 15, 2014)

From the GA WRD website.  First link is for quail habitat management and the second link is for landowner assistance programs to help you create quail habitat.

Links:

http://www.georgiawildlife.com/quail-land-management


http://www.georgiawildlife.com/node/2215


----------



## duckhunter2010 (Mar 17, 2014)

redneck_billcollector said:


> Is yall's land east of tifton? If so, how are yall dealing with the palmettos?



We are actually just outside of Chattanooga. It is considered more piedmont terrain but still operates similar to a Red Hills/Albany style plantation. I have read that most people though are fighting the palmettos with roller chopping and fire. I believe the new Quail Coalition is addressing this exact problem right now in the Osceola Nat'l Forest.


----------

