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Share your wildlife practices

H

Hay hay hay

Well-known Member
I have enough acreage to encourage some wildlife without reducing my hay operations and pastures too much. I leave some fence rows weedy with some overhead brush to encourage quail nesting. I leave a small wooded area unmowed so it is a thicket for deer, turkeys, rabbits. I have 2 burn piles that I rarely burn, so the critters burrow in. I plant millet and sunflowers in a few corners for food. I leave a few milkweed plants for Monarch butterflies. And of course the does raise their fawns, and the turkeys their chicks, in the hay fields before they are cut. I do not cut all the hay at one time so the babies move as we cut sections of the field. My hay fields attract a large supply of preying mantis some years.

I also have a small wooded area that is a magnet for woodpeckers as they migrate through the area, including pileated and red headed varieties. Once in a while we spot an oriole this far west.

But, I could do without the opossums, skunks and woodchucks.
 
The deer wreck my corn and bean crops, the wood chucks eat my beans and poop like crazy on my hay and straw, opossums and woodchucks take all the cat food, gophers make a mess of the alfalfa fields and dig up corn seedlings to the point weeds grow for 4 rows next tot he ditches.

We are kinda overrun with wildlife, not sure I want to encourage more.

Mine you I like wildlife, but they are a little overbearing already?

Paul
 
I have several acres of CRP that have pheasant and quail in them.

I have about 15 acres of timber, for deer and hawks.

I take my brush and make piles in the timber for the rabbits so they stay away from the house.
 
Have about 20 acres of mountain land on the farm with woods,Mountain Laurel etc,lots of very wide fence rows grown up,1 acre pond up on the side of the mountain fed by a spring all sort of animals visit there.Plant strips of Honey Bee friendly crops other wildlife use like Crimson Clover,Sweet Clover,Buckwheat,turnips etc.Use or spray no pesticides.Lots of overgrown corners around the farm with a huge variety of plants.Farm next to me aver 200 acres that runs down to a river I cut about 90 acres for hay the rest is mountain land and land grown up that used to be pasture.The owners only use it to deer and turkey hunt.Like my place lots of thickets and over grown areas.Wildlife Heaven.We both have fenced gardens with water piped down from the mountain from springs to water the gardens.
 
I only have 11 and 1/2 acres so I can't do a lot. I used to burn my brush but now I just push it to the wood line and leave it for animals to use. Here in west Tennessee there aren't any Quail anymore they along with the Feildlarks they look like quail with a yellow breast are completely gone. No one has seen any for years. I've started seeing a few rabbits around my place I guess they're raising in the brush piles. We used to hear Whiperwhills at night all of the time but not anymore. I wonder what took out all of these things. When I was a kid they were everywhere. We now have Groundhogs, Skunks, Armadillo's which we never had.
 
Bring all your cat food and water in at night, the cat's will adapt and it keeps the undesirables.
 
I live on the edge of a small town in Texas. I have started leaving buckets of water out at night for the deer. Getting very dry around here. Calms me to go out and see them in the morning.
 
I have several food plots through out here but they feed in my garden before the food plots. I had 30 acres clear cut and the new growth is 6 to 8 foot tall 2 years later. This year there is a grass that went wild in it and that stuff is thick and 6 foot tall. I don't know if a deer could get thru it. The bear seems to like it
 
Dang I'm over run by deer. I counted 64 doe in a 15 acre hay field. Far too many. So I'm trying to find hunters to kill them off. I don't hunt myself. Problem is all the hunters I find are just looking for the trophy buck not doe.
 
(quoted from post at 15:18:42 07/27/18) I'm trying to find hunters to kill them off. I don't hunt myself. Problem is all the hunters I find are just looking for the trophy buck not doe.
Click to expand...
ther one fills the freezer. Might take you up on the offer if that's okay with you. I live near Port Huron.
 
My Martins.
Kids gave me this Martin house for Christmas. Set it up in late February. Early March ten (five pairs?) showed up and begin housekeeping.
I now have about forty congregating around the house. I think many are visitors from other colonies.
Can't tell how many hatched out from this house.
I made an extra perch for the birds on the grandkids nearby tether ball pole.
a274958.jpg

a274959.jpg
 
My relatives always had then when I was younger, would like to have one now, but do not know if they live in Iowa anymore.
 
The best thing I did for the wildlife on my place is to make permanent water available. Food plots, feeders, etc. are all great, but the key is water.
 
Wait til SV Cummins comes online, he always has wild life pictures.

I learned a long time ago, no sense shopping if you cannot buy.
 
Hit enter too quick . Agree about the cats and quail problem. When I used to hunt a lot on my grandad's place, he had one ironclad rule: If you see a cat, not in or around the barns, it should die. We used to find the results of cats and quail all the time, lots of feathers!
 
(quoted from post at 16:40:01 07/27/18) My Martins.
Kids gave me this Martin house for Christmas. Set it up in late February. Early March ten (five pairs?) showed up and begin housekeeping.
I now have about forty congregating around the house. I think many are visitors from other colonies.
Can't tell how many hatched out from this house.
I made an extra perch for the birds on the grandkids nearby tether ball pole.
a274958.jpg

a274959.jpg
Click to expand...
i'll bet no cat can get those birds high up like that!
 
We have too much wildlife around here. Black bears , fox, coyotes, turkeys, rabbits, pheasant, and deer, not to be left out hundreds of ducks and geese, as well as skunks , coons , Beaver, muskrats, opossum, and porcupine. I don?t want to give these darn things anymore encouragement, or they will take over. Two deer dead on the road near by this week.
 
David, mostly definitely in Iowa. Purple Martins are now more abundant then ever. Check out the Purple Martin Conservation Association website: www.purplemartin.org. Loads of info.
 
We got too many deer, wild cats, turkey, eagles around here to see anything else, once in a while we see a rabbit or a pheasant. DNR released the wild cats to try to control the thousands of deer they protect here. They released the wild turkeys that are destroying the pheasent and quail eggs. It doesn't matter if the deer destroy thousands of dollars of crops, completely destroy your garden, ext, you don't get a dime of payment for your losses. You guys planting food plots are going to live to regret it.
 

I have been feeding the local bunny rabbits all the cantaloupe that they can eat. My wife thinks I am trying to trap wood chucks.
 
I feed the birds year-round and the rabbits. Provide habitat for the rabbits. Both get water put out for them in the drought, like now. I am on my 4th year with a Wren who used an empty tray in one of my tool boxes for a nest. Who says birds don't reuse their old nests. Had a Dove do the same thing for several years near the house. Swallows on the front porch...raise cane when you want to sit on the porch swing.
 
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