Wildlife Conservation
and Stewardship Activities

     Our farm participates actively in wildlife conservation and stewardship.With two planned prescribed burns (winter ‘07 and winter ‘08) and careful planning of food plots on the back 40 acres of our land, we hope to create an attractive and healthy habitat for pheasant, quail, dove, turkey, whitetail deer, squirrels, and rabbits.  

    We have met with and consulted several members of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, including members of Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program and the Forest Stewardship Program. They have willingly assisted us outside these programs with the steps we need to implement to make our small wooded farm of 52 acres into a wildlife haven. Cliff McKinney, Stewardship Forester; Stephen Bennet, Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division; and Cory Drennen, Wildlife Biologist; have met with us on our property to give us advice on ways to increase the habitat of threatened and nonplentiful wildlife.  They have also advised us on the best ways of creating habitat for wildlife that is plentiful in our area, to make our conservation projects complete.  Prescribed burns, constant food sources, and food plot planting have been our first steps in our wildlife habitat and conservation plan.


    Part of our 10-year plan consists of adding two or three more three-acre food plots to the established one, and rotate them in years of three: plant Plot One the first year and Plot Two the second year, Plot Three the third year.  For two years, each unplanted plot will be left to grow wild to provide various levels of food and cover for the targeted wildlife, while the planted field will provide a controlled level of wildlife forage.  We have planted the one existing field each year, adding hundreds of pounds of lime and seed.  Planting this field has yielded excellent results in attracting wildlife of all kinds, including songbirds, Kristi’s favorite.
  
    As an experiment, we bush-hogged and tilled a small area of about 1/4 acre in the front of the property and planted it in the first part of 2006 for deer and turkey.  It grew fairly well, but we decided against planting it again for this coming year because of its blatant exposure to the main road.

    Another part of our 10-year plan includes digging a couple of ponds of about an acre each on the northwestern side of the property for our horses and for ducks and other wildlife.  We will also stock these ponds with fish raised from the local hatcheries.  The ponds will aid in containing rain runoff.     

     One huge project that we focused on and successfully completed in the summer and fall of 2006 was to remove the thousands of pounds of construction debris left by the previous owners and our burned-to-the-ground vandalized storage shed and its destroyed contents.  After months of hard work, the front two acres are finally clear of the unsightly trash.

    Our very hard work and planning have already been rewarded.  At the end of 2006, we saw fresh new sign of wild turkey and quail.  An increase in squirrel and deer population has also been positive.  In 2006, we harvested 5 deer:  two bucks and three does.  We believe the squirrel population has tripled since September of 05.  In the deer season of 2007, Kristi harvested two very nice does, and together we shot about 10 squirrels off the property in two days.  There are a lot of raccoons we'd like to get rid of, as shown in our wildlife cameras, but they are pretty shy and Rodger and I lose motivation after bedtime.  

We are still in contact with the SC Dept of Natural Resources as they answer any questions we may have to improve our stewardship.



889 Kelly Bay Road Prescribed Burn Plan 
as drawn up by
Jack Kornahrens, Natural Resource Consultant
1414 Merrimac Street
North Charleston, SC 29405
843-744-3648
Spring 2007



889 Kelly Bay Road Conservation Plan 
as drawn up by
Cory Drennan, Wildlife Biologist
South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
United States Department of Agriculture - Natural Resources Conservation Services
Spring 2007

Food Plot #3

In the summer of 2007, we happily contracted someone to cut #3, the new food plot, as shown on the picture below. The contracted person was apparently very inexperienced.  What a mess!  

Not only did he use the wrong machinery the first day, but he got about half of one of the three projects done. And that's pushing it.  The fellow did manage to clean it up somewhat after we paid him for another five hours, but our food plot is nothing like we wanted or what he promised.

But we have our food plot, and because he completely destroyed the topsoil, our Magic Carpet didn't come up well at ALL.  At the end of August 07, we put out 250lbs of lime and 200lbs of 10-10-10 with the new Bumper Buddy attached to the Honda.  Cooool!

It's going to take a very long time to recover from this disaster.  We have piles of trees everywhere (he was supposed to burn them, but ran out of time) and no topsoil (it's stuffed in the woods in the form of man-made mountains).  : (

This is all a learning experience, and we learned a big expensive lesson here!

Fire Lane Cutting and Second Prescribed Burn
February and March 2008


Dave Baumann came out in January to assess the land for burning and fire lane cutting, and gave us excellent advice.  He's a retired wildlife officer for SC (South Carolina Department of Natural Resources), and currently traps eastern turkeys to ship to Texas, does prescribed burns, and gives advice on habitat and forest health. Dave suggested that we have the SC Forestry Commission come out and cut the fire lane around our land, so we did!  It looks GREAT!  Mike Crosby did a fantastic and FAST job.  

Once we had the fire lane cut, as Dave recommended, Rodger and I asked Mike and Dave to do a prescribed burn on the rest of the land, to continue what Jack had started so well the year before (Jack had a very, very wet season to deal with, so not much was able to be burned).  Mike was able to get to it first in March of 08. These men are busy people and we appreciate them working out their schedules to do these jobs for us!!

Mike and his crew did a fantastic job with the burn, and he was extremely accessible.  We called him on a SUNDAY and he answered his phone and met us to sign the paperwork for the burn.  Is that dedication or what??
Our land in 2016
We'll probably change this layout a million times,
but as of right now this is how our farm might look the year we retire; for example, we've decided not to invest or keep stallions.  This plan below does not reflect a stallionless operation, but you get the idea.

                                                                                                           

     
     
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