NDR Hungarian Partridge?

J

John Van Houten

Active member
I was wondering if anyone here has raised Huns. I moved to ND, Rugby area and have spoke to alot of locals who say the pheasants
do not do well in the area because of the extreme cold. I have seen a few flocks of Huns in the area but also have been told the population is down.
Any way I was thinking of raising some Huns and then releasing them to build the area flock. Does any one have any suggestions or thoughts on this venture?
I do believe in conservation and I'm retired and it would be a good past time, along with hunting, fishing, remodeling, gardening etc....
By the way the early canada goose season has been good...lots of ducks working the decoys to..
 
John, I haven't raised Huns but another bird you might consider is Sharptails. We ran into them all the way up to Lake Manitoba several years ago. I also would contact the ND Dept of Wildlife for info on raising/releasing birds, if nothing else, to confirm that you are allowed to do it. Who knows, you might get their blessing and money to build pens.
 
All I know is that Huns are harder then Chukars, but Chukars are fairly easy. It would be cool to raise them or even some of the other red leg partridge if ND allows that, SD does.

But I wouldn't waste your money thinking you are going to grow the population. If you want to raise them, release just before the season and shoot some for a couple weeks then you may gain something. There has been no unbiased research that I have read that shows releasing pen raised birds does any more then feeds the local predators.

Huns can reproduce pretty fast with favorable conditions so if there aren't many then the situation right now must not be too good for them. Other then for shooting preserves SD recommends not to do it because it is just wasting money for repopulating.

Tim
 
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I've shot Huns all the way north to the Canada/US border in NoDak; as well as pheasants. In fact some of our best pheasant spots are within spitting distance of the border, so I would take the "Pheasants don't do well this far north in North Dakota" with a very large grain of salt. No, you are not going to put up hundred plus bird flocks, but the hunting is good and very steady, not sporadic pockets of birds here and there. Cruise the dirt roads at daylight and stop to listen for crowing birds.

Very good shartail hunting to your southwest. We skin our sharpies and cold smoke them for a half-hour and then cook them. Adds significantly to their strong flavor...

When the Hun season opens, work the shelter belt windrows for covey flushes. You will also get some valuable pheasant scouting in as you scour for Huns.
 
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I've never read that releasing pen raised birds has worked to restock and upland bird populations.
 
Years ago a group tried to raise wild turkey to release. Local DEC came by and advised them not to release any or they would be fined.
As I heard the pen door failed and most escaped. Some were found 6-7 miles away, thought they didn't really fly far, go figure... Out come was great as we have a season now...
 
Rich~

Current Turkey populations on LI are a direct result of planned releases of wild-trapped upstate birds by DEC - starting around 1990, I believe. Release of pen-reared birds is always discouraged/prohibited because of the real risk of introducing diseases to wild stock (think of Chronic Wasting Disease in White-railed Deer. - brought to NYS via truck).

All the best,

SJS
 
Chukars are easy to raise and do well in the cold. I've raised them here in eastern Mass. They are tough. ornery birds. Fun to hunt and they flush very well.

My friend was telling me though that his setters will not bring them back once shot. They will point and/or flush the birds, but will not bring them back. Not sure why.



Nate
 
Some friends from our Church when I lived in Minot were part of a program called Pheasants for the Future south of town. It was setup to grow the population and funding was available to landowners to participate. I don't know a lot of the financial part or what was required to participate but the friends of ours had a lot of acreage enrolled in CRP. They had quite a lot of good habitat for upland and waterfowl nesting. They were serious about controlling varmint predators and had a building specifically for raising the chicks with incubator lamps. They would get 1000+ chicks at a time and birds would later live in outdoor pens until their release age. The program didn't last and many birds were lost to predators after release. The pen-raised birds were not as good at avoiding raptors especially. Many released birds were lost to Hawks and Owls. Young birds were difficult to raise due to moisture and cold. Conditions even though they were easier to control than mother nature were still not perfect. I believe the program was well intended but inefficient and that became clear over a number of years. There was research that proved it to not be viable for boosting the populations for the costs.

Of course this isn't talking about Huns but it's somewhat similar since both are upland birds. If it wasn't discouraged by the Game & Fish it could be fun to experiment with. Small scale probably would cost a ton or require a large investment of time. One thing I do know is it made hawk and owl killers out of some of the folks involved with raising the Pheasants. It would be interesting to know if the raptor populations are up and the Huns/Pheasants are down in sync...

my .02 cents
 
You will most assuredly not increase the Hun population around you with pen-raised birds, but you MAY enhance your wallet's situation with them...prime Hungarian partridge skins sell for the ridiculous retail price of $29.95 to us foolish fly tyers. A ringneck skin can be readily acquired for less than 10 bucks. Go figure.
Gary
 
You will most assuredly not increase the Hun population around you with pen-raised birds, but you MAY enhance your wallet's situation with them...prime Hungarian partridge skins sell for the ridiculous retail price of $29.95 to us foolish fly tyers. A ringneck skin can be readily acquired for less than 10 bucks. Go figure.
Gary

But Gary, the small feathers on those huns make fantastic soft hackles! I've never bought a skin though, because there are also great soft hackle feathers on woodcock and sora rails, both of which I can get for free. Better color on the huns, not that it matters much to the fish.

Most of the feathers on a pheasant are too big for small trout flies, although I love the drake tails for nymphs and even bodies on dry flies.
Click to expand...
 
As a professional tyer, I know well and agree wholeheartedly about the value of hun feathers for soft hackles...I have a stash of at least a dozen hun skins. And as an avid bird hunter, I use a lot of woodcock and snipe for soft hackles as well. I use ringneck and other pheasants, dyed and natural, in a variety atlantic salmon patterns as well. Back when I counted things, I had a year when I killed 150 grouse, so I'm not hurting for their feathers. It just cracks me up that hun skins are so expensive, based on their size. And they are not that tough to raise.
Sorry for the hijack, OP!
Gary
 
Huns are very hard to raise, that being said there are areas that have wild bobwhite due to training and releasing of pen raised birds, so its possible I suppose. But to affect the population probably not, there are a lot of factors that are causing the down turn in huns out here. Best bet is to hunt sharpies they are fun, especially early season.
 
They are, apparently, the most difficult to raise of the "big 4", which I assume to mean ringnecks, bobwhites, huns and chukars.
Gary
 
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