As mentioned those are Amish farms and they are still using horses and walking behind the plow. Corn is still big and there and all kinds of edges. Corn stalks piled up in teepees like before. No haybines, etc. Horse and manpower. Or Kidspower when you see a youngster wrestling behind a two-team. Can't ever remember seeing an overweight Amish kid visiting at the hospital. Most of the farms up that way are Amish and they all look the same.
Just an observation, in that the apparent same kind of farming held Birds back then.
They use those machines out in Kansas and the Dakotas and they have Birds. One advantage they do have is the fields are so big the predators have to perch way back on the road edges and perhaps don't have as easy access to Birds. Their winters are also harder on Birds than ours. They do have more CRP land to nest and hide in, so that is definitely a factor. Then there is definitely a lot of "salting" that goes on with the commercial operations.
Even places around here that are managed for Wild Birds can't get them to take. Something else is also going on. However, it takes Wild Birds to throw wild. I doubt you can get it done with pen raised and released Birds.
The Pheasant States have enough birds they can still flourish in spite of predators, weather, etc. They outproduce the losses. Here our Birds may have crashed to numbers so low they can't outproduce the predators and weather.
Last edited by battue; 02/25/17.
