well, I did my duty and wasted a tss shell on one this morning

I saw this on Facebook and was wondering who the “talking heads” are the post keep referring to.

I don’t know if this is it but the professor from LSU has been talking about how what we attribute to nest raiding by coons may actually be coyotes, bobcats, etc running the hen off their nests and then coons just scavenging the remains. Said he observed a hen or hens defending their nest against coons in one of their studies….. His idea kinda comes across as down playing the impacts of racoons. I would tend to think that a big coon or a group of several coons are going to be very persistent on raiding a nest once they find it even if the hen does initially defend it.

Imo , i believe fire ants are way over looked. I never read any thing about the effects of fire ants .


They were hell on our bantam chickens. We used to have all kinds of ground nesting birds babies running around here but not any more .

If it ‘might’ eat an egg, a poult, or a full grown turkey, it’s on my hit list, year around.

I’ve seen crows wear out eggs I keep my 22 handy so I can shoot em when ever i see them life in trees or Feilds

I’m with you on that thinking. I would be surprised if they did not check the nest daily. I would think raccoons require more nutrients and have to scavenge more right now than any other time of the year. The Boars have been rutting, the Sows are getting ready to give birth, and to top it all off they have just had their dinner plate “corn from deer hunters” taken away. That would make any animal take more risk to be able to eat.

Typically minimal impact (4%) on quail nests, probably less on turkey nests.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/nqsp/vol8/iss1/88/

I too believe that possums and coons are the lessor of your worries. Coyotes, foxes, bobcats and even hogs are doing work in both turkeys and nests.

I don't know . I do know they were rough on the chickens here . If we didn't watch the bantam we had they'd get ever nest . 20 years ago we a good many quail, field larks, Killdeer . None here now .

Had to watch the blue bird boxes .

Well my old deaf half crippled mountain cur is still doing his part. We’ve killed several coons and possums the last month.