Edge feathering

buckdeer1

Well-Known Member
I've seen alot of great topics here but haven't seen any mention of edge feathering.Is anyone doing it?I have alot of limbs along my timber that are overhanging and blocking alot of sunlight.
 
I havent done it so far but after reading so much on it, it is on the top of my to do list for this winter/spring.I note areas of shade when Im sitting in my treestand, and can really see the stunted growth of the plot on those edges compared to others.
 
I kind of like the shade on west sides of my plots as it helps when its really hot but the low hanging keeps the sun from shining into the timber.I one area I have planted cedars for a screen and some of the limbs are getting over the tops of these
 
I have done it, primarily to create a screen between the woods and the fields. It was almost a 20 yard clear cut on the fields edge, it was a very aggressive cut. It has been a big success in making the deer feel comfortable when entering the fields and coming to the fields sooner in the evenings. It was suggested by a forester who walked my property and it has worked out great.
 
I edge feather around a lot of my food plots. For deer it mostly channels movement and gets some browse on the ground. The real benefit is the small game. I shoot more rabbits that deer a year anymore! I hope to get up to my place this weekend and do some cutting, I will try to remember the camera.
 
I do some about every year. MDC cost share pays to have a contractor do it. I like anything thick for the deer, but the quail are REALLY flourishing due to the practice.
 
I have a total length of twenty-five thousand feet plus to edge feather around my AG fields and food plots. I don't see me ever getting it done with me doing the cutting. So as a test this year I had my logger clear cut a fifty ft. wide by 450 ft. long field edge. The trees were mostly poplar and they started coming back within about five weeks. I will monitor it next year and determine if I should continue with it. The cost is zero as they chip the trees cut for selling to a local Re-energy plant. Actually even there is some money paid me for the chips-a small amount. There are pretty much no saw logs along the edges of the fields so it almost all gets chipped. They are willing to leave my apple trees but that's it. It's not like I can have them actually do the work of text book edge feathering and then pay me.
 
To do it right it needs to be at least 60 feet wide. The times I've tried it, I just couldn't help myself and ended up turning the feathered area into food plot.
 
My dad and grandpa were doing this when I was a kid. They called them "living brushpiles" and would basically feather or hing the outside edges of tree rows. Not sure I can say that it was the sole factor in helping wildlife (they also did foodplots, waterholes, winter discing, and shrub/tree plantings), but it was part of a system that worked.

I read recently that you want to spray the grass under the trees before feathering. You want overhead cover with open ground underneath for the smaller critters to get around. It also promoted forb growth within the brush.
 
My dad and grandpa were doing this when I was a kid. They called them "living brushpiles" and would basically feather or hing the outside edges of tree rows. Not sure I can say that it was the sole factor in helping wildlife (they also did foodplots, waterholes, winter discing, and shrub/tree plantings), but it was part of a system that worked.

I read recently that you want to spray the grass under the trees before feathering. You want overhead cover with open ground underneath for the smaller critters to get around. It also promoted forb growth within the brush.

Yep, MDC requires all sod-forming grass killed when doing the practice for cost-share.
 
Can some one give a discription of edge feathering. Do you drop every tree, or hinge every tree. I thought it was just hinging a few to block sight but it sounds like you guys are doing way more than that.
 
I was always under the assumption that it was thinning the smaller sprouts that come up in the first several feet along the outside edge and blocks the sunlight from hitting ground from the outside
 
Can some one give a discription of edge feathering. Do you drop every tree, or hinge every tree. I thought it was just hinging a few to block sight but it sounds like you guys are doing way more than that.

What I consider feathering is cutting all trees about 60 feet back from the field edge then keeping that area in early succession growth through manipulation from then on. Allows a "transition" area between the timber and the field. Around here you have to go in and bushhog the area about every three years. It will usually grow up in broom sedge, pine saplings, briars, and various hardwood saplings. Produces a ton of deer food through weeds and forbs as well. Good habitats for rabbits, quail, and turkeys too.
 
Deer are creatures of the edge. There are more deer in America today then when Columbus landed, because there is more edge. I'll add that edge can be planted, using brushy shrubs/small trees like Wild Plum, Hazelnut, Dogwoods, Strawberry Bush, Eastern Wahoo, Choke Cherry, Chokeberry, etc. I also line my edge with apples and pears.
 
Can some one give a discription of edge feathering. Do you drop every tree, or hinge every tree. I thought it was just hinging a few to block sight but it sounds like you guys are doing way more than that.

I will try to take some pictures of mine this weekend. I have used a combination of cutting and hinging. If I can hinge a tree, I will. If not I cut it to get sunlight into the first 20 yards or so of an open woods to create a wall of cover. It helps our deer feel more comfortable. My last one also acts as a blockade with me keeping certain trails open. The wall of downed trees and new growth works perfectly as woods edge for our woods.
 
For me feathering isnt about letting sunlight into the woods and it thickening up, but about blocking the view of my plots from the woods. For example 1 of my plots is completely surrounded by dense briar thickets. Sounds great, but there is so much cover bucks can check the plot from 3 sides and I never see them. Plot 2 I "feathered" essentially cutting anything that was over thigh high last summer. This thick messed allowed me to see deer in the feathered area, but also block them seeing into the food plot. My feathered areas I kept trimmed low, because I wanted that extra 20 ft of seeing the deer before entering the plot.
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This is a picture i saved in my notes from one of the OSU publications. In my situation the woods are thick cover, so my edge is lower and thinner than their picture.
 
Ive got several feathered areas and love it. Its thick and a totally different habitat than the woods or the field. At the widest its 30 feet. Other areas 10 feet. Just depends on the height of timber growing behind it in how it picks up light.
 
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