Farming for Pheasants

Avid hunter uses traditional farm methods, programs to raise ringnecks. By Lisa Schmidt

Garry King spent his career selling coffee in Louisiana. Now he wants to create pheasant habitat. “Every square inch of land can be made more hospitable to wildlife – for songbirds, deer, pheasants or any other animal,” he says.

Like most Montanans, Garry King likes to hunt. Unlike many, he is creating his own hunting grounds.

King wants his 750 deeded acres plus 360 acres he leases from the state near Denton, Mont., to provide the perfect place for pheasants – fall, winter, spring and summer. He has planted more than 35,000 trees, raised barley, and sowed tall grasses so “his” pheasants will have food and protection from predators and weather.

“It’s fun to plant something and see the birds come,” King says. “I got a lot of inspiration from my neighbor, the late Larry Schwietzer. He was Mr. Habitat, having planted well over 100,000 trees for bird and wildlife cover.” 

Although pheasants are the most successful introduced bird in the U.S., nesting and brood habitat limit their populations. Chick mortality often reaches 30 to 50 percent in the first three weeks after hatching.

Nesting cover is the single most important habitat-limiting factor for pheasant populations - and the one factor that we can control and affect, according to the Pheasants Forever website.

King’s honeysuckle, silver sage, caragana, buffaloberry, and chokecherry – among a wealth of other varieties – provide seeds and hiding areas for adult pheasants and also attract ladybugs and other insects that ringneck chicks need to survive.

“The first four or five weeks of a pheasant’s life, it eats insects. After that, it thrives on kochia and other seeds,” King says.

With proper weeding to eliminate competition for moisture and nutrients, this one-year-old tree will grow to 5 or 6 feet within a couple of years. Garry King selects tree and shrub varieties that provide seeds, attract insects and offer hiding cover for pheasants.

Prime nesting habitat – 70 acres of yellow clover, tall wheatgrass, blue flax and alfalfa – lines 2.25 miles of Pacer Coolee Creek.

“The tall wheatgrass is the finest pheasant nesting cover I know of. The other plants provide both cover and flowers, which attract the insects necessary for the chicks’ survival,” King says. “Nesting areas are a vital and major part of my program.”

King does his best to alleviate winter’s stresses, too.

King bales his barley, then sets the bales among the trees.

“I set those bales of barley in the shelterbelts. The birds pick on them all winter. I put them in the trees so when the birds see an owl or a hawk, they can hide under the trees,” says King. “During the winter, I’ll have 150 pheasants living in the green ash and caragana planted around the house.”

King’s showcase, though, sits high on a windy hill overlooking Pacer Coolee Creek. Eight acres of trees – 40 rows ranging from 250 to 600 feet long plus a perpendicular windbreak on each end –give pheasants the edge over coyotes, skunks and starvation.

“Birds can get in here and feed for a quarter mile. The deer like it, too,” King says.

Lessons learned

Planting 35,000 trees and expecting a 70 percent success rate might not impress everyone, but “this guy is doing a good job caring for these trees,” says Ted Hawn, who provided technical assistance for King’s project through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

“We’re in a 14-inch precipitation zone and we’ve been in a drought for the last six years. Frankly, it is pretty darn tough to get trees planted right and have them survive,” Hawn says.

Hawn credits the trees’ survival to King’s preparation before planting.

“He provided a nice, weed-free seedbed. Research shows that keeping the competition away from trees has more impact on potential survival than any other factor,” says Hawn.

“Of all the things you do to plant trees, you have got to get the weeds out and prepare the land two or three years before you plant,” King says. “People get anxious to get going and can’t wait. Now I’ve learned: you have to work it up at least 18 months before you plant.”

Garry King and Ted Hawn discuss how to optimize plantings so pheasants can survive central Montana’s brutal winters.

King can’t overemphasize weed control.

“Trees seem like they would be the biggest expense, but in the long run, weeds are the biggest expense. You fight weeds for five years. You put trees in during two days,” he says.

He uses a slick little rotary tiller, called a Weed Badger, to battle the weeds. The badger pulls weeds and aerates the soil between each tree.

King has learned a few lessons during his three years of tree-planting. The Weed Badger taught one lesson.

“I plant my trees five feet apart now instead of three,” King says. “I couldn’t get the badger in and out between the trees when they were spaced three feet apart. I kept tearing out the trees.”

King rototills with the badger three times during the growing season, every 21 days, to keep weeds from stealing moisture and nutrients from his trees.

“You will see a huge difference between the trees that are taken care of and those that aren’t. The growth and survival (of those cared for) is phenomenal,” Hawn says.

Garry King uses the Weed Badger, invented and manufactured in North Dakota, to grub between trees every three weeks.

Pheasant funds

Just as with any other farming operation, King’s expenses accumulate as he purchases trees, herbicides, equipment and fuel. He partnered with the federal government to fund half of the cost of the trees and planting – about 30 cents a tree -- through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

CRP encourages landowners to convert highly erodible cropland or other environmentally sensitive acreage to vegetative cover, such as tame or native grasses, wildlife plantings, trees, filterstrips, or riparian buffers. Landowners receive an annual rental payment for the term of the multi-year contract and can receive cost-shared funds to establish the vegetative cover practices.

A portion of King’s land was already enrolled in CRP when he purchased it in 2000. The prior owner’s contract required King to plant 200 trees in 2001. Instead, he planted 5,000 that first year.

The next year, King’s plan qualified for the continuous CRP sign-up. King entered into a 15-year contract and received 50 percent cost-share on a total of 420 private and state acres. “I intend to continue the nesting habitat improvement in the coming years, by disking and reseeding 200 acres of established CRP ground,” he says. “This vastly improves the cover crop and provides much improved cover and food for the birds.”

At the end of the day, King does it all for Ace, his 8-year-old Springer spaniel.

“I love to hunt upland birds. I probably hunt 60 days a year. I just love to see my dog work, and I love to see the birds,” King says.

Ace, King’s 8-year-old Springer spaniel, is King’s reason for planting more than 30 miles of tree seedlings. King has planted 35,000 trees in the last three years in a concerted effort to provide ladybugs – and other insects—for pheasants.

Last Modified: 04/11/2005