Big Sky Outdoor News & Adventure

With the first real breath of winter, pheasants begin to drift toward thicker cover. If shelter belts, wetlands, idle grass areas, and crop fields are
properly located, the pheasant need not move far to find protection. Ideally these cover types should be located within 0.2 miles of each other. The farther the bird has to travel, the worse the winter habitat.
While pheasants are finding the winter cover they require, the outdoor temperatures have fallen below the bird’s thermo-neutral zone. That is, they can no longer simply ruffle their feathers to stay warm….they have to start eating more food. In fact, they consume 33 percent more food
in November than they did in October. This increased food intake is used to both stay warm and to produce body fat (for
insulation and energy storage). While you and I can put on a coat or just stay indoors to stay warm, the birds have only one set of clothing and must eat more. Not only is the pheasant forced to use this increase energy intake to insure current survival through warmth, it must eat enough extra to insure future survival through fat production. These fat reserves though will prove
beneficial when the first blizzard arrives.
The availability of certain foods has changed since last summer, and pheasants must change their food habits to meet their higher energy needs. The waste grains of summer have sprouted, rotted, or been plowed under. Grains like barley, wheat, and oats now constitute only
3 percent of the pheasant’s diet. The use of these grains is replaced by corn, since it is harvested from October to December. In fact corn attains its highest use in December when it is 77 percent of the bird’s diet. At this time, when birds need more energy to survive, a corn diet has a third more metabolic energy than a small grain diet.
To learn more visit:
www.montanapf.org.