brood report

**benelli-banger** · 06-28-2019, 09:18 PM

heard from a farmer that the broods he is seeing are large and the chicks are small at this point...smaller than a baseball...wet conditions may have delayed nesting this spring...

**Hockeybob** · 06-28-2019, 10:04 PM

Originally Posted by benelli-banger

heard from a farmer that the broods he is seeing are large and the chicks are small at this point...smaller than a baseball...wet conditions may have delayed nesting this spring...

Thanks for the report. Great to hear!

**Downtown Bang!** · 06-29-2019, 05:56 AM

Weather reports I'm seeing in the area I hunt have looked warm and not too wet this month. Definitely could use a year with a nice big hatch.

**Drake1** · 06-29-2019, 10:25 PM

Good to hear BB. It will be interesting to see how things shake out. I’m guessing the nesting was delayed, hens were probably in rough shape though so perhaps we will see smaller brood sizes. If they did delay the weather has cooperated thus far but we still have a few months to go. Report from my area (Kimball) is that they are starting to see some nice broods. Fingers crossed

**moedogee** · 06-30-2019, 12:03 PM

We saw our first hen with 2 chicks near Ethan on the pavement. Grass in the ditches is well over a foot tall already so unless the chicks are on the roads cant tell yet. We have seen a fair share of roosters tending all spring but the cold wet cycle we have had all spring may have hurt the early hatch

**reddog** · 07-01-2019, 09:26 PM

Drove from Portal ND to Chamberlain sd over the last few days. Spent some time off blacktops between Hoven and Ft Thompson. We did not see any hatches, but seen quite a few bords, for the time of day it was. There is thousands of acres of ground that didnt get planted, and it looked like plenty of Prevent Planting of oat cover crop also. Grass is very high everywhere, so nesting conditions should be good. I spent some time spraying thistles on my Chamberlain property, and did not see any nesting action going on there, but seen plenty of roosters on our road. I think nesting is still going on for the most part. Only seen one hen cross the road.

**hunter94** · 07-02-2019, 08:44 AM

under all these unusual conditions, when the roadside count is published this fall, it will likely be somehow skewed. so many factors to consider.

**A5 Sweet 16** · 07-02-2019, 12:48 PM

I'm hearing some real good reports & I'm not surprised at all to hear them. Although we always complain about winter, it was actually relatively mild. I'd think the hens should've been in better condition than usual in most parts of the state. That, aligned with better nesting cover than usual & no big catastrophic weather events should lead to a good hatch & good brood success. Either way, how it's reflected in the fall brood count report is anybody's guess. As I've trumpeted before, the survey report is a poor indicator of short-term changes in bird numbers. You can use it to see long-term trends, but unfortunately that's about all it's good for.