During late summer the amount of cover and food available for pheasants is at its highest level. As fall progresses into winter, cover and food are drastically reduced. The amount of cover and food in late winter is but a fraction of that a few months earlier. Reduced pheasant abundance is closely related to this reduction in habitat. The ring-neck is totally dependent upon the farmer for existence.
Pheasants are a product of the farm.
The most fertile, productive farmland has the best potential for producing an abundance of pheasants. Pheasant production is dependent upon the right kinds and quantities of vegetation used for food, nesting, roosting, escape cover, winter habitat and other life processes. The more intensively and efficiently an area is farmed, the less desirable it becomes for pheasants. At least 30 percent of the land in good pheasant habitat must be uncultivated and 5-15 percent of the area must be in permanent protective cover like cattail marshes or shrubby bottom lands. Permanent vegetation is needed along fencelines, ditches and roadways to provide safe travel lanes between feeding areas and protective cover.