How many rooster pheasants per hen?

I was hunting the youth pheasant season in North Dakota this past weekend, and I saw about 10 female pheasants and no males (Which are the only ones you can shoot in ND). I haven’t hunted pheasant too much, but I was just wondering what the reason for that was. Is it because the male pheasants have been shot? Are less roosters usually born? Any help would be appreciated, Thanks.

My local DNR agent here in Iowa told me one rooster can service all the hens in a square mile. Lucky rooster.

Could be that you just saw a lot of young-of-year birds and the roosters have not moulted into their adult plumage yet. Fairly common when early season hunts happen in conjunction with late spring hatches.

Ahren Wagner wrote:

. I haven’t hunted pheasant too much, but I was just wondering what the reason for that was.

The reason is that the roosters that survive the first encounter with a hunter and/or dogs get smarter than all getout. Either the roosters ran out the other end when they heard the click of you sliding the last shell in the gun, or they sat tight and let you walk right past them.

One time in western MN, we were about to walk a long CRP strip. I happened to see a couple of deer at the far end of the strip, so I was glassing them and then I saw about a dozen rooster go sprinting out the end of the CRP strip we were about to walk and pile into the cattails on the other side of the road 1/4 mile in front of us.

Guess what we flushed in that CRP strip? About 20 hens.

Grouse

One of these times it’ll quit surprising me when a rooster flushes just as I return to my truck. I don’t want to say that they’re “smart” because their brain is miniscule, but they certainly figure out how to survive in a hurry.

I remember reading something sometime, I think it may have been through the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks, that (if I recall correctly) only 10% of the rooster population needs to survive through the fall and winter until breeding season to make for a full recovery in the population each year.

And if more than that 10% population does survive, it could actually hurt the population in the long run. The roosters could drive the hens out of prime winter habitat or feeding areas, leading to a decline in hen population and therefore a decline in overall pheasant population.

Roosters: They get around

Thanks for the info, guys!