Nesting Habitat

What exactly is it and what is best. I am lucky enough to own my own land and consequently can do anything with it I want. I already have a great turkey flock but I am about 2 months from living there permanently and my ability to work on the place is gonna get much much better. And if I can get the frickin loggers to get my place cut I will have 50 acres of blank slate running right down the middle of my property with 30 acres in a block on the north end of the property. I mainly wanted to do the cut to establish good deer bedding cover because most of what I have is aging out.. But this area has historically had the least turkey activity and I would love to change that. So, for you guys who actually know something about the elusive feathered rat, what would you do to make that area as attractive as possible to them. Like I said I can do pretty much anything and at 65 years old tree income is at the bottom of my priority list. Nesting, food, poult survival, etc., etc. everything a turkey might desire. For the property as a whole I will be trapping extensively, already have burn rotation, good food plots and have been widening roads and shooting lanes by spraying out junk trees. So the basics are covered.

You got pigs?

Rhymes with corn.

Porn? It makes sense. Get that dominant gobbler all worked up and all the hens will be laying non stop. Where would one source turkey porn and how do you put it out? I assume you staple it to trees about a foot off the ground?

Undoubtedly the best nesting cover is broomstraw mixed with shrubs and small saplings. 2-3 years out from a burn. If you can maintain that with fire, great. But, it has to have the fuel to be able to burn it. If it is a clearcut, it might be a problem to get a fire across it, especially after a couple of years of growth. This habitat is also good deer bedding and good fawning cover as well. Turkeys nest close to edges as well - drain edges, timber type edges, field edges and road edges so the more of these the better. Good nesting habitat is often easy to create, just can be hard to maintain. Also consider that once a nest is hatched, there needs to be good bugging ground closeby as well. Insect management is what is necessary here. Fields that have been disked in the fall and are growing ragweed or a similar annual can be one of the best bugging areas for turkey poults. Clover fields are fair, fallow fields that were planted in the fall for deer plots are good unless there is ryegrass in them - then they are useless. Open woods greening up from a burn are also good. Small fields less than an acre or so can be predator traps so larger fields are better. My $.02

My vote is to make it a huge field with a lot of diversity mixed in......A big destination food source for both deer and turkey. Spread some cereal rye with a variety of red and white clovers in the fall and then let it go to native vegetation in the summer.....maybe mix in some wildflowers.....Mowing and resetting it annually.....

You did see this thread was titled "nesting habitat" right?

Gobbler covered it well. I get that broomsedge habitat in patches of longleaf pine scattered over the place, with a 3 yr burning rotation. I don't know what part of FL you are in, but if it's within their native range they should do ok, and Mr. Biden will even pay for them to be planted. At least you have something growing in the nesting habitat.

One thing that I am convinced will help poult survival is strips or patches of centipede throughout the place. It needs to be very close to the nesting area, and as soon as they hatch the hens will carry the poults to the centipede and use it as the main bugging area for a week or so. As soon as they get a little taller, she will take them to taller grass, but the centipede provides something that nothing else does and helps them survive that critical first week. You won't find any other places recommending centipede; it's a concept that we pioneered here at PCP University.


Turkeys feed in my chufa patches about 10 months out of the year; I would sure plant some of those. I plant a mix of arrowleaf and crimson clovers throughout the place. The larger poults will use them as a primary bugging area.


Good luck with your project.

Thanks for some solid info and points to ponder. It looks like I am going to soon be in position to step things up, largely because I will be living there full time. Do to life circumstances I have really not been able to do much at the farm over the last 2-3 years and it shows. But that is about to change big time and I am pretty excited about it.

We have had decent luck planting milo grain saugrum and leaving it standing. Birds hang out in it all day the seeds that fall are good food.
We planted strips in 2 different spots 100-125 yards long 25-30 ft wide. We bush hog it in late May mid June and broad cast and drag in another crop. Easy to plant.
Had 2 nest this year crow, coons or something busted the eggs. I will be trapping all I can later this summer and fall.

The mention of broomsedge habitat got the wheels turning. First question is given good habitat about how much space does a nesting turkey want between it and another one. Second, would other native grasses be as good as broomsedge? I have one non-logging dependent project I have been thinking about for some time. I have about 4 acres between my Pecan orchard and summer plot fields that is just crappy Bahia pasture that is useless to me and the critters.



Been thinking about putting it in native grasses such as bluestem, gamma, whatever is most suited for se Bama and putting two 20-30 foot wide clover/something strips through it so I could burn 1/3 of it every year or two.Whay says Aldeer?

I’d want a mix of big and little blue, side oats gramma etc. I’m thinking about doing something similar and will probably use plugs instead of trying to seed. I’ll shoot for 30-40 grass coverage

The beauty of our native grasses (Alabama) is they, typically, are waiting in the soil for you to treat them right. Depending on what was done to the field in past years, fallowing it out often results in a nice mix of natives - not always. I usually do this first to see what I get. Only if I have to do I resort to planting native grasses. In southeast Al, Indian grass as well as the bluestems like broomstraw, splitbeard bluestem, elliots bluestem and bushy bluestem are the most common and the best nesting cover. Big bluestem is not a common native except in the blackbelt and grows too tall for good turkey nesting. Little bluestem is not particularly common but is a native here. It is too short for good nesting. Silver bluestem is also a good one. Ive never seen side oats grama in the woods but it is supposed to be native here. It is a fair grass for nesting. The problem with these is when you buy them they are almost always a genotype native to another state, either far north of here or far west. Not a good selection of Alabama natives. Once planted they don't spread much if at all and go dormant and lodge too early in the fall. I only plant them if I have to.

That being said, I would burn it, spray it with 2-3 oz of escort as soon as it greens up good , burn it again and spray again if needed (it probably will be). Escort is good for killing bahaia and very friendly to our native grasses.

Thanks for the info. It was a farm field for about 80-90 years until I put it in Bahia about 15-20 years ago. Does have broomsedge in it because it has not been limed or fertilize in years.

Don’t want to hijack the thread, but I have a field that was Bermuda hay until the 2011 tornados. Since then we have stopped using it. I plant 3-4 acres or corn, a couple acres of cereal grains, and an acre of white clover in it. The rest has been bush hogged once a year or burned. But now I’m having a problem with sweet gums taking over the native grasses. I burning last spring, and the gums were over 10 feet tall when I bush hogged last week. What can I do to keep the briars and grasses but kill the trees? Thanks

I don’t know about Florida, but here, the DCNR has a biologist assigned to each region that will come out, go over your property, and help you develop a plan to improve the habitat n general or for a given species. No charge. (If you disagree, you don’t have to follow the recommendations.). They can also point you to services offered for first time property owners to help offset the cost of cutting fire breaks, initial burns, and such. Unfortunately, most did not study at PCPU, but I figure listening is free.

My experience is that in the areas you plant crops, bermuda isn't much of a problem. Disking and herbicide keeps it under control (but does NOT eradicate it). However, the native grass you have in the fallow areas is as useful as cement to wildlife because the bermuda will be all underneath it. Even if you didnt bushhog it every year (making it useless as nesting habitat), it would still be a terrible place for a hen to nest because the poults would have a hard time getting out of or feeding in a sea of bermuda. It may look ok with broomstraw growing out there but look on the ground and it will be all bermuda. Best suggestion is to burn it, let it grow back, apply 20-25 oz per acre of Arsenal to kill the bermuda and gum and then fallow it. Probably won't eradicate all the bermuda but it will do a good job. Then it would be useful as wildlife habitat.

I’ve been doing what gobbler has suggested for several years to get quality nesting/fawning cover. Selective herbicides, burning and fall discing does wonders at creating what you want.

When you say fall disking, you’re just roughing it up not disking clean, correct ?

I’ve done both. The last I did included herbicide in July (2021), discing 3 weeks later, herbicide again, discing in October, herbicide again in early November and then what came back in spring has persisted this summer is amazing. I went bare earth discing like a row crop field with three herbicide applications. I usually disc it pretty good but I’ve also just barely scratched the ground too.

Is there any more of this type of habitat like you're wanting to create in the immediate area around you??.......Is 40 acres enough “scale” for this type of improvement to be effective on its own??

Good to see you posting again bud. Was wondering if everything was ok

Diversity is always an improvement regardless of scale.

Before making any definite decisions.....pull up a soil map just to check out and see what you're dealing with in this 40 acre area compared to the rest of your property. Are we talking about potentially the best soil type that exists on your place or the worst or somewhere in the middle?? If it happened to be some kind of fair to good loam soil type then I would definitely take that into consideration on how I utilized the area....same for if it shows some type of pure crap soil. This would be a factor that weighed in on my decision

Agree. That statement does sound like "Things a Democrat would say.".

😂😂

I have hunted a clear cut bordering mature hardwood/Pine mix. Once our cutover got some cover growing in it, the hens poured to it to nest. I'd keep several acres of that 50 acre spot in some knee-waist high natural growth. They'll nest there for sure.