It's energetic work to attract a mate. If her nest is destroyed early in the season, the hen returns to mate again. Only some 30 percent of all nests escape predators that include opossums, skunks, raccoons, coyotes, snakes, and domestic dogs and cats. Less than half the chicks make it to adulthood. Heavy rains and early chick-rearing seasons can mean even lower nesting success.
Chicks stay with the hen for at least six weeks, dining mostly on nutritious insects.
As the chicks grow older, they join the adults in pecking the leaves, flowers, and seeds of prairie plants in addition to insects. A Story of Loss and Hope Attwater's prairie-chickens once had some 6 million acres of homeland. The prairies they knew extended along the Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi, Texas, north to the Bayou Teche area in Louisiana and inland some 75 miles. Grasses of many species waved in the winds including little bluestem, Indiangrass, and switchgrass. Suppressing prairie fires also allowed brush species to invade prairies.