More is Better

With the peak pheasant chick hatch just around the corner we should all be asking ourselves, "Can my grassland areas provide a better food source for young chicks?" The primary food for pheasant and many other upland chicks is insects. They provide valuable sources of protein and are at a level easy for young chicks to find. The best way to improve insect production in grassland areas is to add additional flowers or forbs. These flowers provide important breeding grounds and attract insects.

These flowers and forbs can be improved in different ways. Light disking and inter-seeding can enhance the number of flowers in these mono-culture grasslands. Landowners can also establish new sections of grasslands by broadcast seeding and lightly disking forb seed. Improving grassland areas by improving diversity of species provides a benefit to all ground nesting birds.