This is one of a series of leaflets prepared for use of sportsmen and landowners interested in helping nature produce better wildlife crops. Life history highlights of each species are also included, for students and others interested in how these creatures live. For the uses indicated, they are available without cost.

All practices recommended are based on the latest information, applicable to Missouri conditions.

Information in this leaflet is the result of work supported by funds under Pittman-Robertson Research Program, W-13-R.

Quail Management

Jack A. Stanford, Biologist

Upland game habitat and quail numbers are dwindling rapidly in may localities. As natural habitat is destroyed, the point is finally reached where quail will not respond to normal management. This point has already been reached on many acres, but ona great many more acres quail populations can be restored if all ofus interested in quail adopt quail management as an annual tradition, as we do our hunting. But the time for management action is now, before habitat conditions pass the point of no return.

THE BOBWHITE QUAIL, a bird of from five to seven, rarely nine ounces, is found in every Missouri county. During spring and summer single unmated males, pairs and family groups are the typical social units. With the arrival of fall frosts and reduced summer vegetation, quail enter their fall shuffle. At this time they intermingle in large groups, mixing and reorganizing into coveys of from eight to twenty birds that shift to areas of heavier winter cover. The coveys remain fairly intact during the winter.

In the warming days of March and April covey bonds weaken and birds pair in preparation for nesting. The nesting season is from April through September, normally becoming widespread in May. The clutch, averaging 15 small white eggs, is laid in a bowl-shaped, grass-roofed nest. Preferred nesting cover is dead grass, and nests are seldom far from an opening or the edge of cover.

Clutch losses from predation and from nest desertion (often caused by heavy rain or severe drought) run high: nesting failures are common. But quail are prolific egg layers, and if the clutch is repeatedly destroyed or hens are forced to leave the nest many will often renest several times. Second broods may sometimes be produced by successful early-nesting hens.

Normal incubation takes 23 days; the chicks hatch ready to leave the nest. Incubation is commonly done by the hen, but the male may assist and, if the hen is lost, will often bring off the brood himself. Young quail are brooded and cared for by both parents till well grown. Chick mortality is high; often half or more of the brood is lost. Sexes look alike until the age of ten weeks, when they assume the distinguishing head and throat coloring of adult birds.

In normal weather the hatcing peak is around June 15, with 65% to 75% of the annual crop produced during this month. A late spring or adverse weather during May and June may result in a July or (rarely) August hatching peak, which is usually reflected in reduced annual production, reduced chick survival and smaller fall populations.

Few quail live beyond 14 months, and many hens fail to survive long enough to reproduce. With over 80% of the annual population failing to carry over to the next year, an annual quail crop cannot be stock-piled: good production and survival ofyoung must occur annually if high quial numbers are to result each fall. This depends on a combination of favorable weather and favorable habitat.

Population Trends

Since the fall population depends so heavily on the summer's production and survival, weather conditions during the nesting and rearing season can cause high annual variations in fall quail numbers. Prolonged snow and low temperatures in spring may result in high adult mortality, lowered breeding potential and less production. Extreme drought or rainfall in the production season may cause high breeder and clutch losses and above-normal loss of young; favorable weather permits high production and high populations. High quality habitat helps reduce the losses, but time is the main corrective factor: complete recovery from short-term lows rarely requires more than two or three favorable nesting seasons.

Long-term population declines, on the other hand, are extremely serious. Two major factors are usually responsible: intensive land use, and natural plant succession.

Intensive land use progressively lowers the carrying capacity for quail. The trend is toward larger fields, heavier cropping, less waste grain, less quail food and less of the diversified plant associations which provide abundant "edge." Increased grassland development with heavier livestock grazing, elimination of wasteland border strips and woodland, increased spraying to control plants and insects--all have reached serious proportions. Many acres of the finest quail habitat have been and are being eliminated by these practices.

natural plant succession occurs on land that has been recently cultivated (or the ground has been distubed) and is resting or abandoned. The first plants to come in include many annuals whose seeds furnish much favored quail food: about 80% of the quail's diet is supplied by annuals, including both native and agricultural crop plants. Through natural succession, perennial growth gradually replaces annuals in the progression to predominantly grassy or woody cover, neigher of which furnishes the amount and variety of food quail need. Generally after five to eight years following bare ground the most favorable plant stages for optimum quail habitat are past, and the population declines.

These two factors--intensive land use, and plant succession past the favorable stages--together are chiefly responsible for long-term population declines. They result in destruction or deterioration of quail habitat, and can be corrected only by habitat restoration.

HABITAT REQUIREMENTS

HABITAT QUALITY is most commonly evaluated in terms of carrying capacity, which for quail is often expressed as the number of acres per quail in fall, when birds are most abundant. Extremely favorable habitat may carry densities of a quail per two to four acres. A bird per two to 12 acres provides favorable hunting; below that, birds are considered rather sparse. Quail management goals are to hold the density between the two to 12 acres per bird figure. This is done by meeting their cover, food and, to some extent, water needs.

Cover

Quail become most abundant where ample food sources are well distributed in a combination of cropland, woodland, grassland and waste or brushland cover. Such a diversification of plant cover types usually provides that magic condition of edge. The greater the interspersion of type combinations, the greater the amount of edge and bobwhite quail.

A secret of successful quail management is to maintain all life requirements in closely associated units, thereby holding birds near the vicinity of hatch. High quality edge helps to accomplish this. In Missouri, edge between grasslands and croplands, and brushlands and croplands, receives the most quail use throughout the year. During adverse periods of snow and cold, the birds often seek the denser woodland type and brushpile cover.

The low mobility and limited flight range of the bobwhite, plus its preference for walking and scratching for food, indicate its great need for (1) closely related units of diversified plant cover and edge, plus (2) rather open ground for scratching and feeding.

Food

Quail eat some green plant growth and insects in season, but rely principally upon fruits or seeds. Seeds of annual plants provide about 80% of the birds' diet; those of perennial plants (mainly in the tree group), about 20%. High seed production in the species favored by quail is a must if we are to achieve high quail numbers.
quail drawing

Native annual plants are found mainly in freshly or relatively recently disturbed soil where the ground is well exposed. Thus in quail food management we attempt to maintain open ground conducive to annual plant growth and high seed production by controlling the overabundance of dense perrennial growth.

Fortunately, some of the major crops in agriculture are annual grains. Many of the fines quail foods today are waste grains in corn, soybean and grains in corn, soybean and grain sorghum fields, and the annual Korean lespedeza pastures. Cultivation for farm grain production may also produce heavy stands of native annuals such as ragweed, croton and wild legumes which also rate high as quail food. Non-grazed woodlots often provide legume seeds relished by quail. While modern agriculture has the potential of producing annual plant seeds favorable for quail, present day intensified land use, livestock grazing and weed and insect spraying practices are leaving less and less cropland wastes and native foods available.

Two important perennial tree seeds consumed by quail are acorns and the seeds of the green-twig sassafras. Fruit of berry-producing shrubs also provide both food and desirable cover.

MANAGEMENT

THE MAJOR GOAL of modern quail management is the offsetting of the adverse long-term trends by injecting into the farming economy (1) a desire for bobwhite quail, (2) an economic incentive to develop quail management as a worthwhile operation, and (3) the application of management that will maintain the birds on the land. For intensive managemetn, the Conservation Commission's local representative should be consulted for advice and assistance.

The first step in planning for quail is to examine the proposed management area to determine the limiting factors of quail food, cover, and land use activities that may be responsible in limiting quail numbers. A unit of 40 acres is handy to work with.

A check of the quail present and their use areas provides an immediate key to carrying capacity. A study of abandoned covey use areas often reveals what has happened to cause a bird decline, which may provide a key to corrective management.

Any long-term serious attempts to increase quail demand that a cover or sketch map of the area be prepared. Such a map should show the location of quail coveys, important present and planned food and cover features, waterholes, and progress of the development program. The time devoted to ground mapping and planning is well spent for it will show us what we have, what we should, and will provide a permanent record of progress.

The kind and intensity of quail managemnt practices will vary widely with the problems encountered and existing bird abundance. Where bird-acre ratios are below a bird per 12 acres, a few well placed cover plantings or food patches may increase the carrying capacity and rapidly boost the annual bird population upward.

If quail dnesities are very low (as a bird per 30, 40 or 50 acres) it may be practically impossible to increase their numbers. This is true today of many agricultural areas where it is too late for logical, economical quail management. Such are the conditions that we should avoid through bird management NOW on many threatened quail producing acres today.

Recommended Practices

On each forty-acre unit, we should increase and maintain an interspersion of plant types that give us maximum edge with adequate food and water distribution. Management steps are progressive:

  1. Carefully evaluate and protect the native cover (if sparse cover is a limiting factor). It is far easier to preserve what is there than to establish new plant growth. The solution here may simply be to fence out such voer areas as draws, fence corners, thickets, low-producing waste areas, fencerows, and edge borders of light shrubs and herbacious growth favored by quail. Additional growth often develops naturally. Especially in woodlands and along edges, groups or even single trees providing perennial quail foods (oaks and green-twig sassafras) should be protected.
  2. On coverless areas close to existing or potential food sources, plant native shrubs such as gray dogwood.
  3. Establish, where cover is desirable, rye-barley-vetch cover patches. These will usually provide high return in a cover management program.
  4. Areas extensively overgrown with dense stands of matforming plant growth and brush through plant succession are unattractive for quail. Open such sites by partially clearing and removing the rank growth while still maintaining edge. Removing undesirable tree species along wood borders and in the woodlots opens up ground and allows native annuals to develop. Disking and fertilizing such sites hastens the process. The removed materials should be piled and protected as brushpiles, which provide excellent winter cover. Distribute such piles over the area

    Plant growth may be removed through cutting, disking, bulldozing, plowing, light selective area burning (controlled, ont wild fire) or a combination of such practices. Where quail management is being applied extensively over large acreages of submarginal agriculture land, the methods of plant growth removal will vary; a cost analysis will determine which techniques to use.
  5. Lopping over occasional undesirable trees by cutting half through the trunk three to four feet high rapidly provides intermittent brushy areas along rather open edges. Treetop brushpiles offer needed cover and immediate benefits in edges that otherwise may consist mainly of six-inch or larger stemmed trees which provide intermittent brushy areas along rather open edges. Treetop brushpiles offer needed cover and immediate benefits in edges that otherwise may consist mainly of six-inch or larger stemmed trees which provide little in the way of desirable quail cover. Songbirds, by providing a variety of seeds dropped in such treetop cuttings, help the sites to develop additional plant growth rapidly. Excellent loafing and escape areas for bobwhite (and rabbits) result.
  6. A considerable variety of plants are available for quail cover development. Their use depends upon the degree of management practices to be applied.

Food

quail drawing 2The soil distubing activity associated with cover management also results in increasing native annuals--often excellent quail food sources. Thus operations for food and cover imporvement are inseparable. However, specific practices of planned food-patch development, disking and fertilizing of waste areas, sowing of bare ditches to favored food plants help to correct the limiting factors of scarce quail foods.

  1. Planned periodic (three to five years) removal of yeary, dense, duff forming perennial growth, along with soil disturbances favor the development of native annuals and available quail food. The addition of a complete fertilizer improves soil fertility and hastens plant and seed production.
  2. The top-rated quail food, Korean lespedeza, should be generously used in any Missouri quail food management program. It is an annual which readily reseeds itself if ground conditions are favorable. It should be broadcast along edges, draws, open ditches, or over bits of bare ground. Prepared strips or patches of the plant should be used wherever feasible. It should be included in food patch mixtures, as it will often take over a patch that is not replanted. (Plant competition of perennials will gradually reduce Korean lespedeza.)
  3. The annually planted food patch seeded to highly preferred domestic annuals provides abundant quail food. The choice of plants varies with need, locality, soil fertility and planting combinations. Generally, cowpeas, millets, soybeans, Korean lespedeza and varietyies of sorghum cane are the principal plants in the annual food patch. Maximum seed productions require ground preparation and adequate fertilization. FOOD PATCHES SHOULD BE WELL FENCED AT ALL TIMES AS SOME PLANT BY-PRODUCTS ARE HIGHLY TOXIC TO LIVESTOCK. Food patch rotations are recommended with fallow patches being replanted periodically.

The application of the various cover and food management practices will vary (especailly annual food patches). The location and use of agricultural grain crops on a farming area may often determine the logical placement of annual food patches in a given year.

Long-term quail management should result in permanently established, well planned and fenced food patches that can be used, retired, or rotated as the needs demand.

In permanent quail management programs, every consideration should be given to the permanent fencing, with adequate entrance gaps, of major management improvements so that they are (1) protected from damage by livestock grazing and (2) readily accessible for periodic management.

Quail management, like farm management, is a living, ever-changing process. Plants do not stand still; cover changes, and annual food patches must be properly attended. If an annual bird crop is expected, periodic attention must be directed to its annual production.

Water

The daily water requirements of quail are usually met through the moisture derived from green plants, food, insects, dew and snow. Under normal conditions, surface water is usually not required although it is readily used by the birds.

Surface water of streams and ponds becomes increasingly important during drought periods. During the more severe drought years, quail production, broods and fall coveys are often limited to those areas near open water.

The establishment of waterholes and ponds near protective cover and the development of ground cover near existing water sources should be considered throughout the forty acre units of a project area. Such water serves multiple puposes in any program by benefitting farm stock, quail and dogs during the hunting season.

Harvest

quail drawing 3A well planned quail management program forsees the production of surplus birds which should be harvested. Annual quail production normally far outstrips the capacity of the winter habitat to support the surplus birds and annual quail losses approach the 80-90% level. These are adequate reasons for encouraging harvest of at least 50% of the birds produced. To achieve such a harvest on high carrying capacity quail lands is often quite difficult. Special harvest procedures and efforts are often necessary for adequate harvest success.

Financing Programs

The old saying: "money makes the mare go" is only true in developing a successful quail management plan--be it only a food patch or two or more serious objectives. It costs to feed, train and kennel the bird dogs, puchase the guns and shells, assemble hunting gear and pay for hunting travel expenses. Likewise, management costs are high for fencing, seed, plants, fertilizer, labor and often land rental.

The thinking man should consider quail production costs along with his harvest outlay. The quail hunter must defray a share of quail management costs--if you would have quail hunting "tomorrow."

Bobwhite Quail Management: Planning Ahead For Wildlife Survival