I think besides predators and habitat loss, another thing that affects turkeys, quail, and rabbits is fire ants. They're EVERYWHERE! Sit down in the yard during the summer, and you won't be there a couple minutes before ants find you. A young bird that thinks an ant bed might be a good place for a dust bath...he's done inside of thirty seconds or so.

DoA, fire ants kill a lot of small fawns each year also. The fawns survival technique is to lay still and the ants will swarm it.

Once bitten the ants give off an odor other ants use to find and attack the fawn.

I found a small fawn one time near a road that hollered out as I drove by. She was covered with fire ants. I cleaned all off her and set her down across the road, came back two hours later and she was covered again. Cleaned her and moved her across a closeby creek...two hours later I just picked her up as she was covered again. She would of died if left out because the smell of the bites attracted any fire ants nearby.

Obviously not. Why would real world experience overrule what some dude writes in a magazine. The experts also say you can't wear polyester blend pants or contact lenses while fighting structure fires but I've been in well over a hundred and never had my pants or my contacts melt to my body or my eyeballs.

Danny,

I do believe there is something else in play as far as turkeys go. It is not all hogs and predators.

Was there anything conclusive about the spreading of chicken litter on fields possibly carrying diseases that turkey poults are being killed with?

I believe that in the areas I have lived and hunted in west central Al the problem is habitat destruction by clearcutting HUGE areas of hardwoods, esp river bottomland.

When I lived in Hale and Greene counties I'll bet there were more than 10,000 acres of river bottom land cut in Hale Co along the river. Different landowners and different years, but damn near 10,000 contiguous acres along the river over maybe five years. You cannot tell me that did not negatively impact turkeys in that vast area. I know it did. and there were no hogs in those areas either.

I think that habitat has played a huge part of the decline also.
Along with the increase in predators due to the collapse of the fur market.
Fire ants, more birds of prey, increased chemical application to the land, etc.

Complex to say the least!