I heard a rumor a couple of weeks ago that UT Martin had published a study that established a link between the spread of chicken litter and infertility in hen turkeys. The research was done in Southern TN. You gotta be a biologist to read such studies, but I thought I had a way to get to read it. Instead, I was told recently that they pulled the study due to pressure from the poultry industry.

I wouldn't expect any of the biologists that work for a state agency to be able to comment on this, but do we have any private sector guys that can talk about it?

I'm starting to think I might oughta drop this if I wanta live to see another turkey season.

Conspiracy I say

Wouldn't surprise me either PCP. Alfa and poultry industry is the devil. I heard of the study too but can't get my hands on it.

I heard tell of this mysterious study. I would have liked to have seen it.

I can think of at least one organization that should not only get their hands on it, but also write an article about it in one of these magazines that keep showing up at my door. Now why wouldn't that happen???

No doubt. I heard every copy was destroyed and every researcher connected to the project mysteriously disappeared. The last known researcher called 911 in the middle of the night and said someone was in his house and he smelled chicken shat on his boots. Guy was gone when the cops arrived.

Looks like it's all over, but there is a rumor of a last copy on a thumb drive and it's location is the subject of a big hunt. I think they suspect that 257 has it, but they are afraid to move in because he is under Monsanto protection. Not even the Chicken Mafia messes with Monsanto.

OK, this part is made up. I shouldn't watch 24 before bedtime.

But I'm pretty sure the study happened, and now it's gone.

That's great.

Steve, how long you gonna be on these pain meds? This could get good.

Guess what???

If it was government funded there should be a record of it somewhere. You may need an army of lawyers and more time than we all have left on this earth to file and see to completion a FOIA request though.

Hmmm, again - what organization should the turkey hunting community be able to trust to make this happen? Or is that group just all talk. I mean I've read their magazines, their missions, and their slogans over the years.

Study is not complete. No official results have been released. I'm staying on top of it.

Thanks to you and Nighthunter for commenting on it.

We need another banquet! That will solve everything!

NRCS chicken litter and turkeys

Seems like NRCS has been aware of the potential disease transfer for awhile. Please see Top of page 6

Killing truckloads of hens in the fall couldn't have helped S Tn either. It tore me up to see folks bragging about all those poor truckloads of hens they killed. Just no sense in that.

Chicken industry has a lot of power. And a lot of poop too

Speaking of poop, how did the winchester thing end up BGD?

I know several thousand acres that had HUGE fall numbers that never got touched in the fall, those birds dissapeared in a years time. I know fall hunting didn't help, but it sure didn't cause it

Most cataphropes are caused by many different things coming together to cause it. I think that was one spoke in the wheel that didn't need to happen.

Seems like I mighta mentioned that several years back, and lots of folks told me they had plenty of turkeys and a 6 hen a day limit would never be a problem in TN. Thing is, there are still counties that have that 6 a day limit. I have hunted in 3 of them, and the places I hunted didn't have as many turkeys as the places I hunt in AL. It always seemed like insanity to me to allow such a thing.

How can a state with an active hen season pretend to care about the population? How can a hunter who has actively pursued a hen on purpose ever complain either?

It's not smart, and there's no counter point. Nothing.

Nope. Nothing. And anyone that's ever partaken in that sinful act outta be ashamed.

Small step for TN but they are going to a 1 hen per county limit starting this Fall. This is for the counties that currently allow hens to be killed in the Fall.

Don't shoot girls! That's the #1 rule of turkeys

Glad to hear that; that's a pretty big step to go from 6 to 1. One too many to suit me, but I guess I just don't understand.

I want y'all to chew on this:

Rural areas are getting smaller and smaller. 15-20 years ago I was about as deep in the country as you could get. Took 30 minutes to get to a grocery store. Now I've got 3 neighbors. Worthless lazy people have flocked to the country side over the last 15 years to basically just get by because there are no jobs, low paying jobs, they are getting a gov't check, all of them are on food stamps, etc. and they live out in the country cook meth and poach on your land on Tuesday when you aren't around, etc. You are working, they aren't 1/2 the time.

That's rural America in 2016. Like it or not you ain't in Kansas anymore. Alabama has more people on welfare than you can shake a stick at and don't think they are African American either. The majority of them are white and most of them hunt whether they have a license or not. We have more food stamp recipients than kids in public school.

Let me get off the rant and to the point.... Hunter numbers don't necessarily have to go up statewide for areas to receive more hunting pressure than they have in the past. The areas are just becoming more confined. You are putting more hunters in 100 square miles or whatever your distance is you'd like to measure.

You allow feeders, increased bag limits, unlimited harvest, etc.

You have less animals to hunt. Don't care what species.

Pretty simple.

Met a feller from middle Tennessee a couple weeks ago said he'd killed bout 175 turkeys in his life. Not an old fellow either, come to find out bout 1/2 were hens. I told him I know several hillbillies with numbers like that but their kills are all toms.

Goat Killer, my notebook absolutely refuses to let me type your name as one word. Keeps changing it to boat killer, which makes no sense, but that's the way a lot of things are to me now.

I was just gonna say that you make a lot of good points. Chicken litter and other things may be a real problem in some areas, but I still think that a loss of habitat is the most important limiting factor on the turkey population. And it is primarily nesting and brood rearing habitat that we are lacking. If the poults make it to a couple of months old, they won't starve to death. They can survive almost anywhere with a little age on them.

To the top by request

I wonder if the litter used in the study was put under a heat, or just put out out directly from the houses?

We use litter, (for 7-8 plus years).

God Bless,
David B.

What I wonder, is what happened to the study? It's like it just disappeared from any public discussion.

Cause the Chicken Mafia made them an offer they couldn't refuse

This ut matin research..sleeps with the chickens

I am not sure of the value of spreading unsubstantiated rumors.

I had posted this article in the other thread but felt it has a lot of relevance. While it is only dealing with domesticated chickens and turkeys it seems it would be applicable in wild birds as well. Here are a few of the parts that stuck out to me.


It is commonly agreed that all broiler breeder farms are heavily contaminated with caecal worm (Heterakis gallinarum) eggs, which are the only known biological vector of the blackhead organism.


The life cycle of Histomonas has been reconsidered, after the discovery that turkeys could become infected from direct contact with other birds or contaminated faeces.


http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/1285/control-of-blackhead-disease/

A large farm to my east routinely spreads litter, but it's the liquid form. What I do know, is the property between it and my little place has no turkeys on the east side. I've covered most of the adjoining 2800 acres recently doing some trapping. Ive seen plenty of sign from all game except turkeys. Repoertedly the 5000 acre farm has very few turkeys as well.

This tract is very diverse, hardwood river bottoms, 2nd thinning pine and cutover. Zero turkey sign in areas that should support turkeys. We are at 77 on nest predators removed.

I dont know what else to do. I have some beautiful clover plots and last year planted almost 150 lbs of soybeans in kne of my plots. Zero turkeys visited that plot. In fact, I've seen 1 turkey in my field in just over a year.

One thing that may have been hurting me is I let the edges of my field grow up in broomsage, dog fennel and briars with a few openings for transition from the timber. The deer loved it but Im thinking if affected turkey movement. Most of it has been mowed now.

Ive also heard that bull gnats might be a reason the turkeys avoid my fields. They can be very bad at times. If this is the case, would establishing purple martin and bat boxes help with the gnats ? Beginning to get a little desperate here.

The existence of the study is not a rumor; Matt said he was aware of it and was monitoring it, but it wasn't complete when this thread came up 2 years ago.

So maybe they are still working on it. Or maybe something else happened. I would like to know the status if anyone has info on it

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/twra/documents/TWRA_UT-CVM_Turkey_Disease_Study_Summary-_Sept_2016.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwjU76DZk7bZAhWphOAKHWQbDswQFggnMAE&usg=AOvVaw1RdJsl0NgRIv8xFTYKs5pW

http://www.purdue.edu/uns/html4ever/021118.Rhodes.turkey.html

Anyone got any thoughts on this being part of the problem? I know on my farms in southern middle Tennessee numbers are dropping and it’s not Bc of chicken litter.

Very legit argument. I'm sure the great state of AL is on top of this. NOT

Thanks for posting the link. That doesn't seem to be the study that I was told about earlier. This study referenced a 1994 study, but no mention of one at UT Martin. It seems strange that they would not even mention that one. Maybe it was never finished?

PCP I know it’s not the study you were looking for, it’s another study I found that could be part of the problem. Like I said on my places is all hardwood ridges and cattle pastures so I know chicken litter was not the problem.

I can't find anything official mentioning it at it Martin. There was one at Tennessee tech and on at Tennessee's vet school I think

Bumping this thread for Semo, but it isn't the one I mentioned in the earlier thread. I was told by state nwtf officer that he read a preliminary copy of the UT Martin report and the state chapter was gonna stay after this and get something done about it. But they never did.

I got a young'un at martin majoring in ag...i'll see if he can reach out to the folks up there and get some info.

That would be interesting, but I predict he will get the Sgt. Schultz response from everyone - "I know nothing, NOTHING!"

And what happened to the much publicized AL Turkey Study? Weren't we promised that the results from it would have been long available by now? Did the results not fit the Agenda? Seems strange when publicly funded studies just disappear.

I was able to find the thread on our scientific study done right here in 2016 and I bumped it back up.

If you want me to show you that chicken litter doesn’t bother the birds around here I can. Can’t say somewhere else...
Not a scientist or biologist but I know what I have seen every year since 1993. Everyone with a hayfield or a pasture
within a 10 mile radius from me spreads it thick multiple times a year... I figured it would be a bad bad thing.. idk

Maybe in a handful of years....we have to master the game check system first