Game Farming for Profit and Pleasure by Dwight Williams Huntington

Author:Dwight Williams Huntington
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Hercules powder co.
Published: 1915-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

nearly so. In addition to food the briars afford safe protection when a hawk or other enemy approached. I have seen a line of telegraph poles across a big wheat stubble when there appeared to be a hawk on nearly every pole, and there was absolutely no place where a grouse could hide on the vast prairie which extended to the horizon. Of course there were no grouse. I found the sharp-tailed chicken very abundant in the valley of the Rosebud, Montana, in the days when it was hardly safe to shoot there on account of the Indians, but the wild roses were also very abundant and afforded protection to the birds and food in the winter, when they lived largely upon the rose hips which could be seen above the snow. If we give the natural enemies a good chance to eat them, by destroying the prairie chicken's nesting sites and covers, and if we destroy absolutely their winter foods on vast areas, we must not expect the birds to return to places where they have become extinct because we have enacted laws prohibiting shooting.

The food habits of the prairie grouse are well known. They eat many insects, especially grasshoppers, from May to October, and are valuable aids to the farmer for this reason. In the fall and winter the food of the prairie grouse is mainly vegetable; fruit, leaves, flowers, shoots, seeds and grain. Dr. Judd says: "Like the bob-white and the ruffed grouse, the prairie grouse is fond of rose hips and the abundant roses of the prairie yield 11.01 per cent of its food." In Kansas and many other states the wild sunflowers, goldenrod and other natural foods were tremendously abundant, but throughout most of the range of the grouse these foods have been destroyed absolutely. It would pay to restore some prairie grass, wild roses, sunflowers and other covers and foods which are essential to the birds' existence. No farmer or sportsman can be expected to give the land, time, labor, and money needed to save the grouse simply as a bait for trespassers. This grouse is fond of the stubble as a feeding ground and it can be made profitably abundant on many farms, but it must have winter foods and covers, and it must be protected from its enemies if any shooting is to be done; otherwise it will become extinct.

Dr. Judd says this grouse yields readily to domestication and says preserves for domesticated birds should be established. He relies on Audubon's statement, that "the pinnated grouse is easily tamed." The recent experiments which have come to my notice have been failures; and since the birds now are very valuable, it seems peculiar that there are no published reports of successful hand-rearing. It is certain, however, that the birds can be made very abundant as the red grouse have been on the moors of Scotland. Practically all of the grouse bred in Scotland are wild birds. Few experiments in hand-rearing have been made

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