Thread: Ready for Deer Season?

Mr. Cleland, you may well know this, but invasive fire ants are near the top of the problems that bobwhite face. Sure predation takes its toll as does habitat loss/destruction, but the evidence seems to point to fire ants as the leading cause of bobwhite declines throughout its historic range. It's not just the ants eating chicks/eggs, but they are wiping out the local insect populations which chicks desperately need to grow and thrive due to their high protein content. A long range plan that includes control/eradication of fire ant populations may help you attain your goals of having quail return. Some good reading on this can be found below:

http://texnat.tamu.edu/files/2010/09/page23.pdf
AONmagazine.com - Fire Ants Impact On Wildlife - Alabama Outdoor News
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Attwater_...fire_ants.html

Hope this is helpful and good luck with your efforts!

Originally Posted by benhunts

Mr. Cleland, you may well know this, but invasive fire ants are near the top of the problems that bobwhite face. Sure predation takes its toll as does habitat loss/destruction, but the evidence seems to point to fire ants as the leading cause of bobwhite declines throughout its historic range. It's not just the ants eating chicks/eggs, but they are wiping out the local insect populations which chicks desperately need to grow and thrive due to their high protein content. A long range plan that includes control/eradication of fire ant populations may help you attain your goals of having quail return. Some good reading on this can be found below:

http://texnat.tamu.edu/files/2010/09/page23.pdf
AONmagazine.com - Fire Ants Impact On Wildlife - Alabama Outdoor News
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Attwater_...fire_ants.html

Hope this is helpful and good luck with your efforts!

Lordy, with all the trouble we have trying to control pine beetles, kudzu, cogan grass, popcorn trees, privet and Chinese lespedeza---I don't know how to even start on fire ants. I think there's some fly from South America that slows 'em down, but I don't know any details. The fire ants that really get me, literally, are the ones that don't really make a mound and just hang around until I sit down and get comfortable right by or right on them. When that happens, there is a good chance you will see me naked---which should have some detrimental effect on the ants, but it doesn't.

Saw a pic of a floating fire ant mat in TX that was around 4x8' and 2'' thick. No telling how many millions there were on that one. Bottom line, rats, roaches and ants will have their own little war once we are gone...

The survivor of which will be preyed upon by coyotes.

Originally Posted by benhunts

Mr. Cleland, you may well know this, but invasive fire ants are near the top of the problems that bobwhite face. Sure predation takes its toll as does habitat loss/destruction, but the evidence seems to point to fire ants as the leading cause of bobwhite declines throughout its historic range. It's not just the ants eating chicks/eggs, but they are wiping out the local insect populations which chicks desperately need to grow and thrive due to their high protein content. A long range plan that includes control/eradication of fire ant populations may help you attain your goals of having quail return. Some good reading on this can be found below:

http://texnat.tamu.edu/files/2010/09/page23.pdf
AONmagazine.com - Fire Ants Impact On Wildlife - Alabama Outdoor News
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Attwater_...fire_ants.html

Hope this is helpful and good luck with your efforts!

quail disappeared around here 20 years before the fire ants showed up.

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Already have my first customer to my mineral lick, had numerous does, some with fawns as well, now if they just stick around long enough for bow season to start

my main farm is 100 acres planted in corn/soy bean/ wheat/ rotated yearly or eoy by a guy we lease our land to for crops. the rest of the farm is 150 acres in swamp with deer plots/small fields/oak bottoms that I keep up for wildlife. I am aware ants are bad on the eggs/nests but i've never been able to actually kill a colony.. the little b@$t@rd$ seem to move 5ft over and build again...
Haywire.... where can I get those south american flies?(do they carry some zikkabola virus?)

Quail in our area have been decimated by a combination of factors. Coyotes didn't show up in NOALA until the late 70s and got their share. The old timers used to keep. 22 rifles in their trucks and would stop on the side of the road to pop a hawk on a fence post, which is seriously frowned upon now. The biggest factor has been the loss of habitat. There used to be dozens of small patchwork small acreage farms with a wide variety of cereal grains and lespedeza hay. Farmers would let their land lay fallow every few years and grow up in broadleaf weeds that formed a canopy above the birds that provided cover overhead and room to move around at ground level plus a wide variety of insects to eat in warm weather and hard seed to eat in cold weather. There were endless miles of fence rows that was grown up with good food and cover. . Harvesting equipment was less efficient and spilled a lot of grain and a lot of small field corners were left standing in the fall. Roundup herbicide became popular in the early 80s and the fence rows got sprayed. Now the small patchwork farms that had so much diversity are large fields that have very little benefit to quail. The CRP program in the 80s had farmers plant fescue which is pretty sad wildlife habitat. Chocolate covered fire ants may be as common as pulled pork some day.

I agree totally Mark. In the 70's growing up in Indiana we could go out in the late fall and winter and kill a few quail and rabbits without dogs just walking the fencerows. Driving on the gravel roads in the summer you would see many quail and countless rabbits. The fencerows are gone, fall tillage is the norm and the coyotes are thick. I rarely see a rabbit or a quail on the road these days. We also have no real fur market any longer and the coons are thick as well.

Getting the freezer ready for the new season.....