Tickseed, beggar's lice, etc., otherwise known as desmodium, is more of a woodland and edge plant. As noted, it's great quail food. We get into beggar's lice more often hunting grouse and woodcock (or quail when they cheat and head for the brush...which they almost always do). Desmodium brushes out pretty easily but takes time to get all of it out. There are far worse clinging seeds, none to match cockleburs in our area. They must be picked out by hand or cut out with scissors. We do clip our Gordons in the summer and before the season in September. We leave their tails and ears, but after about mid-season, most of that hair has been worn off. Their tails develop what we call "monkey finger" when the tip hair has been worn off completely.
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"Doubtless the good Lord could have made a better game bird than bobwhite, and better country to hunt him in...but equally doubtless, he never did." -- Guy de la Valdene (from A Handful of Feathers )
"'I promise you,' he said, 'on my word of honor, I won't die on the opening of the bird season.'" -- Robert Ruark (from The Old Man and the Boy)
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