My experience on healthy flight pen raised cock pheasant placed in open clump grass CRP [billiard table flat, but quite difficult to walk through] during the wee hours [1~3 AM] and hunted the following day w/good dogs is 80%. Have found that holds fairly true throughout open country. I am not speaking of preserve birds here. If the birds are placed within 2 miles of the flight pen & the hens are still there, some of those cock birds will return to that proximity over the next week or so, like a homing pigeon will to it's coop. Come mid March, the cock birds are like fighting cocks & will kill each other to the last man standing within a matter of hours, if left in the pens. That killer instinct in cock pheasant is triggered by the number of hours of sunlight the birds' retina is exposed to, a fairly recent revelation. It is absolute.

On quail, again healthy flight pen raised open country released birds, I'd say it is close to the same percentage if hunted dilegently and withn a week of their release. FWIW, my experiences w/flight pen raised quail at this time are considerably less than that of pheasant.

On chukar, they need to be hunted ASAP or otherwise the raptors [btw, it's Latin for 'thief'] will take them all. They may or may not covey quickly; my experience is it varies on the distance from where the birds are planted and in what quantities & the terrain. Also, chukar as young birds are subject to getting fatal 'worms' or parasites and frequently require antibiotics to insure they remain healthy & live to maturity in a pen raised environment. They can provide good sport as released birds and are oft bagged to a high percentage if hunted the same day they are released or planted. Where they have been established successfully in the wild in the N/W US, they are among the very hardest birds to hunt, IMO.

Preserve birds are mostly bagged one way or another soon after their release or 'plants' and any bird that hides successfully from the dogs doing follow-up will be taken by one sort of predator or another within the week. Sometimes there is an exception. This last remark from a deceased friend who owned & ran a successful game bird preserve for a few decades.

edit; all of the above to what % of pen raised birds are bagged

Last edited by tw; 06/07/13 11:34 PM. Reason: misread question