surrogator

[highcotton]

http://www.wildlifemanagementtechnologi ... gator.html

What do you think? Anyone tried these?

Charles

[Kmack]

Charles,

I was down at Ronnie Smith's last summer with a friend who whose dog was in training. The day we were there they were releasing a bunch of young birds from a surrogator. From what I could tell the birds looked very healthy. He could probably give you a good assessment.

Here's an e-mail address - office@ronniesmithkennels.com

Kevin

[bondoron]

Wow that seems expensive. You could build one for a quarter of that price I bet. Might not be as pretty but who cares.

[ezzy333]

I did basically the same thing with a barrell but only had a dozen in it. Raised 11 and now almost a year later there at least 6 still around and maybe more.

Ezzy

[bobman]

read this


http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=194160

[ACooper]

Thanks for the link Bobman, the surrogator is something I have been following for years, I have been to a couple of seminars put on by the one of the original developers, Greg Koch. My cousin and I are supposed to start a project next summer.

[topher40]

I have a landowner that bought one for me to realease birds out onto his property this year. I should be able to let you know more by this fall, check my website for more details if I dont get back. They sure are a fancy unit and you could build one yourself but be ready to take the learning curve.

[prairiefirepointers]

Wow that seems expensive. You could build one for a quarter of that price I bet. Might not be as pretty but who cares.

Actually yes.. WAY less. Concidering that WMT wants $1800 for thier surrogator, and it cost's me about $70 bucks to build the one I use, less feeders and waterers. With the one I build and have successfully used, I raise the day old quail chicks in my garage under a heat lamp for 2-3 weeks, then transfer them to my surrogator where they are "imprinted" to their area until they are 6-7 weeks old, and released from the unit. I leave my unit there for a few days, then pick it up and leave a feeder/shelter in its place.

It is rediculously simple, from the process to design. I will post some pics tomorrow evening. I need to get my stuff all picked up before the CRP is burnt off anyways.

[birdogg42]

If you dont have the habitat there for the birds to survive after release then you are wasting your money. JMO

[highcotton]

Thanks for your responses. We have what I consider to be good habitat. Our 320 acre tract is now in it's 15th year of pine/hardwood CRP. The strips between tree rows are alternated between fox tail millet, grain sogrum and fallow. We also have a good controlled burning program. We are not getting the results we would like with our released covy program and would like to find a way to up our survival rate. Biggest single problem seems to be hawks. Specially those little Coopers @#$#%&...

[bobman]

the coopers will pick them all off in a few days they are heck on released birds

[zzweims]

I wouldn't bother with a surrogator. Brood them like Bobman, then stick 'em in Johnny Houses or something similar, and release when ready. Though I've actually had better luck releasing older, flight conditioned birds in spring, than I have had with the youngsters. They just don't fly well enough to avoid the hawks.

Aline
http://sitekreator.com/zzfarms

[zzweims]

Oops, I meant to say 'brood them like Prairiefire.'

Aline
http://sitekreator.com/zzfarms

[Brushbustin Sporting Dogs]

We have a group in our county that owns I think almost 17 of them. It is fairly new just the second year having so many of them. They do pheasants and actually this spring I have seen more pheasants than the past few springs and along ways from the release sites. They have learned alot about them and have had better success with providing them water and food afetr releasing them. They cut down several trees to provide them with shelter the first few days after release. I do think they work from what I've seen.

[prairiefirepointers]

Oh man.. I'm sorry, I forgot to get pics and upload them tonight. Did'nt finish working cattle till 9 pm. I'm bushed.. I will try harder tomorrow to get a few pics snapped and uploaded. I promise.

[rizz1]

we have 2 of them. we try to release 5 cycles per year per unit. it is our second year of doing it. We got most of the kinks worked out by the 3rd release last year. and had 115 of 125 birds make it. Snakes were about the worst problem we had. the kids had a blast putting the day olds in the unit. hope this helps

[dlfl]

Check our http://www.talltimbers.org/welcome.html . They have done more research on southern bob whites than anybody else. I know of a couple people using the surrogator with info from the bioligost there. Helpful people and they will work you.

[jchotz]

Come follow along as I learn to use my surrogator to raise wild quail - http://www.raisingwildquail.com. I'm happy to share what I learn and answer any questions.