Wild life

[am1too]

How much of your property do you devote to wild life, if any and why?

[Awnry Abe]

Probably a bit less than a quarter.

Wildlife devoted areas include:
Heavy to moderate woods steep grade.
Brush piles in the corners of pasture
Pockets of tall native junk that I leave for birds
A 5 acre lake. (Cows skinny dip in it, and we water from it, but it is mainly a wildlife hotspot.)

Why? Because the further from natural beauty and closer to cultivation I get, the more uninteresting life out here becomes.

[krenee]

I am posting so I can follow this thread. I am interested in what all the different things people have to say looking to get the family land ready.

[LoonyK]

Originally Posted by am1too

How much of your property do you devote to wild life, if any and why?

I think most of it, even the house has its own balance of nature with the spiders and the prey.

[Old Vet]

All of it is for wild life. Deer and elk on the back portion, Bird and squirrels on the rest. But on ocasions a bear comes around to raid the garden and plum trees.

[farmerDale]

I devote all my land to wildlife. Fields for food, forests for cover, lakes and ponds. Each part of habitat is necessary to retain wildlife.

I leave my land intact to maintain a steady meat supply, provide recreation, hiking, camping opportunities:

Part of the key is diversity of land use. Good diversity means the animals LIVE on your land, not simply use it for only one purpose. A stand of trees without a feed source, or a feed source with no cover, does not allow for animals to live and get all they need from your land. Also, having enough land is a key. A band of moose or herd of elk need more than a few acres to live. So the combination of diversity of habitat and a large enough area of habitat will keep you in meat perpetually. You don't want the wildlife leaving your land to be harvested by a neighbor.

[slingshot]

Pretty much every devotion I make takes wildlife into account....

If I open up an area for cattle, I also give the deer a work around. Even the fence lines are set up so the deer can move throughout the property.

We have a pond that was dug to curtain depths to hold different kinds of fish. It's a hub for all wild life, ducks, geese, birds of all kinds, bears, deer and every small critter you can imagine.

With healthy wildlife comes a healthy predator population. It's not a problem as long as you take it into account. Trapping season brings us additional revenue so it all works out just fine.

[TerriLynn]

We run cattle here and rotate their pastures, but our pasture land includes quite a few ponds and swampy/marshy areas. We see geese, sandhill cranes (almost too many of those anymore) ducks, turkeys, and just last month saw a pheasant (first time in many years) we ran in and got the little boys to see it, they had never seen one here before.

Also have deer, woodchuck, coyote, muskrat, opossum, rabbits, coon, squirrel, and chipmunks in abundance. Haven't seen a fox in quite a few years tho.

The hayfields have a pond here and there and while they are too shallow for fish, we have seen snapping turtles, and the waterfowl like them. Also we leave the edge of the hayfields wooded and grassy for wildlife.

We also have a few spots of wooded land (that's too hilly to farm-but good for firewood) that we leave pretty much undisturbed.

We also have a quite a few large maples in the yard and have many, many different types of smaller wild birds around too, and I have been hearing a woodpecker somewhere not too far away this summer. We have also noticed a couple Great Northern Woodpeckers out in the cow pasture area this summer for the first time ever this summer. They are big! My husband is 50 and has lived here his whole life and never remembers seeing one before this.

He also saw a bluebird yesterday which is uncommon for us. Lots of hummingbirds, robins, bluejays, quail, cardinals, finches, killdeers, blackbirds, barn swallows, pigeons, turkey vultures, hawks, owls, and orioles too.

[Wolf mom]

Dang critters use mine as a feeding station and playground.

Most interesting was early one morning I opened the front door and there stood an elk munching the grass at the bottom of steps not 3 feet away. Dunno who was more startled me, the elk or the dog - who just stood there until the elk jumped & ran away jumping over my pipe fence.

[jwal10]

We only have 1 acre here. The spring runs all the time to run the micro hydro system. This keeps the pond full this time of year. Only open water for a couple of mile radius in the dry summer. We have turkeys that come twice a day to drink. 1 tom and 3 hens, one with 7 big young'uns, one with 8 smaller ones and another with 4 little ones. There are raccoons and a lot of birds. The fence is high enough that we don't get deer inside the fence, usually. We have opened the gate once for a big buck years ago. I see no evidence of deer at the fruit trees. The gardens have a tall fence. There are fish in the pond, we see a lot of birds there. We see a lot of quail in the berry thickets outside our fence, the goats keep everything trimmed up inside our fence. The farm has some berry thickets, tall grass and the wild rice patch. A lot of birds there. The old orchard and oak patch have deer and an occasional elk come around. Lots of pheasants. We don't have a lot of wind so no windbreaks but we do plant fence rows and let wild plants grow in them, wild rose, fruit trees and berries....James

[crazyfarm]

Most of ours is involuntary donation to small prey animals who I'd like to just shoot and get it over with. In 6 years we've never seen large game, until I planted the fruit trees of course. Then I almost hit a deer going up the driveway.

[1shotwade]

I'm kind of surprised there are so many like-minded people here! I've kind of felt alone in the promotion of wildlife!
To answer your question,everything we do is oriented toward wildlife.Every thing that was row crop is now in alfalfa or CRP.We have two active creeks and two ponds,a few acres of mature woods and some thicket, fields of warm season grasses and mixed hay also,plenty of fallow ground and lots of brush piles filling ditches etc.
We have also planted white pine ,white cedar,persimmon ,hickory,walnut,hazelnut chestnut oaks pecans and have 2 separate orchards. I also keep "paths" bush hoged to make it easy for "poaching element" to access our place and steal out wildlife without permission after we put out all the moneys and energy to keep the place up!(Yes that is sarcasm!

Wade

[MO_cows]

None of it is "devoted to wildlife". We didn't buy it as a wildlife preserve. Unless you count a few clumps of milkweed that we leave alone in the pasture for the monarch butterflies, I guess you could say that is "devoted to wildlife".

However, wildlife is abundant. Our land is a little oasis of pasture surrounded by cropland on 3 sides and pond with some woods on the 4th side. Houses are a mile apart on average, with none built further down into the bottoms where flooding is the most prevalent. We have something that digs holes in a corner of the pasture. Badgers? Skunks? We've seen both, just never caught them in the act of digging. We have coyotes, hear them every night and see them occasionally. Only had to shoot one so far in over 20 years. Bats take advantage of insects attracted by our "street light" at the driveway. We often see them feeding from that cloud of bugs. Barn swallows take advantage of our structures to build their nests. We started with one pair nesting under the eaves of the house. Now there is a colony, nests in about every structure on the place. We have a lot of rabbits, the dogs don't even bother to chase them anymore. They take advantage of brush piles, our pampass grass, and the "coyote free zone" close to the house that the dogs provide. There are blue herons, they take advantage of the drainage canals between crop fields and natural creeks. Many evenings, we see them flying home to wherever they roost. Deer often come out of the woods at dusk and browse in the soybean field across the road. We have seen them in our pasture a few times. And toads, we have toads galore! DH used to run a bug zapper out by the garage. He had to quit, it attracted so many toads you couldn't walk around without stepping on them. We have seen bald eagles in the area, redtail hawks, owls, all kinds of birds. We are on a flyway so huge flocks of Canada geese and snow geese will stop over, also have seen some huge white birds I think were trumpeter swans, and all kinds of ducks during migration season. Not far from us, there is a duck hunting club. They can flood their land to attract the ducks, but that is the only piece of land for miles around that is managed specifically for wildlife. Cropland, few roads and none of them paved, not much human presence or activity on a daily basis, just naturally lets the wildlife flourish.

[jassytoo]

The wild life here comes and goes as it pleases. The only bit they can't usually access is the veg. garden. We have a salmon stream on our place so when there is dead salmon there we get lots of visitors. I don't mind I enjoy watching them.

[Kris in MI]

We don't have any specific area set aside just for the wildlife. There are spots we try to keep human presence in to a minimum at certain times of the year. For instance, the 10 acres of woods is used for deer hunting only October through January--no hiking thru the woods, no cutting trees or hauling in firewood, etc. If you aren't there to hunt, you can wait until after deer season to do whatever it was you wanted to do in the woods.

We try to keep critters out of the garden, but it is not fenced and never will be--it's too big. Same with the chicken coop, the barn, and the house; no four-legged wildlife allowed. But other than that, whatever fauna happens through can go where it wishes, and stay if it decides to.

Prior to our purchasing the property, it was 30 acres of crop field, and 10 acres of woods. In the 12 years we've owned it, the increase in variety and abundance of wildlife has been amazing to watch.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by am1too

How much of your property do you devote to wild life, if any and why?

We have three areas with firepits, and seating for dozens of people outside, then there is the wrap around deck and hot tub, not counting the bar inside the house. That works pretty well for us, although we are planning a gazebo dedicated for the bands. Why? coz its lots of fun!

[paradox]

Originally Posted by am1too

How much of your property do you devote to wild life, if any and why?

383 out of 385 acres. Because I don't want to mow 385 acres :-)

[DEKE01]

I have 173 acres and all but maybe 10 is wildlife friendly, not devoted to wildlife, but every effort is taken to make it work for both wild and farm life at the same time. Most of it costs me nothing, I just adapt whatever I'm doing as I work thru my goals for the homestead.

1. no open areas more than 200' from good cover
2. my pastures feed horses, deer, quail, sandhill cranes, turkey, grey and fox squirrel, and other wild critters as well as cattle starting next spring. My farm had 90 acres of solid pine plantation, and now those 90 acres are silvapasture, so they can feed and shade cattle and horses, produce timber income, and support wildlife at the same time.
3. Any mast producing trees and bushes are left in the pastures. I have about 100 native persimmon I'm trying to encourage.
4. Except for that 10 acres, no more than 50% of the pastures are mowed each year so that the native plant seeds are produced for wildlife feed
5. In a 40 acre portion of the farm that is almost all wild, I plant a deer mix in the openings that were created when I logged the pines. It is the same seed I plant in pastures but in different proportions: brassicas, rape, turnips, rye, milo, cowpeas, millet, and a few other odds and ends. I'm still experimenting with what does best.
6. I've planted 50 trees for the critters that are mast producing, chestnuts, apples, and persimmons mostly. This has been my biggest expense, but the trees are planted where they will serve as pasture divisions and windbreaks, so I get a bit of value out of that. And I'll get my share of apples hopefully.
7. A project for the coming year includes two ponds to provide wildlife water. Both ponds are being dug to provide fill for construction projects. One pond will be well fed and irrigate the orchard/gardens. The other pond will get all the water from my roof and grey water from the house. It will also serve as a fire break, which is critical in my area.
8. Other projects on the list are bat and bird houses. I'll do that with scrap lumber from the home building.

Why? Because it is good for the world. I'm a tree hugger at heart and I think it is everyone's responsibility to leave their piece of the world a little bit better than they found it. And it makes me happy to see the 2 momma bears and the 5 cubs between them. And deer, turkey, wild hog, and quail taste good.

[am1too]

Originally Posted by Awnry Abe

Probably a bit less than a quarter.

Wildlife devoted areas include:
Heavy to moderate woods steep grade.
Brush piles in the corners of pasture
Pockets of tall native junk that I leave for birds
A 5 acre lake. (Cows skinny dip in it, and we water from it, but it is mainly a wildlife hotspot.)

Why? Because the further from natural beauty and closer to cultivation I get, the more uninteresting life out here becomes.

If I had steep grade I'd do the same. Wishing I had at least a 1/2 acre pond. I'd guess I've only got 5 open acres.

[am1too]

Originally Posted by Yvonne's hubby

We have three areas with firepits, and seating for dozens of people outside, then there is the wrap around deck and hot tub, not counting the bar inside the house. That works pretty well for us, although we are planning a gazebo dedicated for the bands. Why? coz its lots of fun!

Now that sounds like wild life.