Do you think chicken litter has had an impact?

Uh yeah.

Preacher!!!! Hit him with the Chicken Mafia info

Forgot about the litter, but yeah, that might be a factor.

All the GMO CORN probably does, too.

So..........you bust the door open with - Limit to 3 and shorten the season!!

But now, you are not so sure. And nothing in that list, absolutely nothing, has any relation to a limit on male turkey for the honest man.

Yallcan blame litter but you're swinging to miss. Not saying there's not small cases of bad piles but not every pile of litter is bad. I'd say 95% are clean.

Perhaps that's why the 5-bird limit hasn't changed, turkey247.

But something's going on that is impacting the turkey populations in the Southeast.

Yea it's called the nwtf. Introduced too damn many Yahoo!'S to a secret society. That's the root of the problem.

Hahahaha. Probably right.

But then again I don't turkey hunt so really doesn't matter to me. Damn foolin things get in our way planting corn and peanuts. Told our tractor drivers to keep an unplugged 870 with bird shot on their tractors. They can stop in mid field and shoot 6 at a time and then keep on planting. Turn around at the end rows and do it all over again on the next pass. Damn seed eaters all they are.

Those 10 closed days gives me about 100,000 acres all to myself it looks like.

This is my first year in many that I did not see or hear a turkey during deer season! See where that have been and have some pics but have not laid eyes on one in last few months!

This is the best way to approach it. Silver linings.

Man you just need Whild_Bill to come show you the ropes

While it's very unpopular, most chicken houses are contaminated with blackhead and it really can't be helping anything with turkey populations.

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

Found one thread and bumped it to the top

I’m all about helping the population in doing smart solutions to do so, but in the middle of April last year I came across areas where they did controlled burns. Some guys that I ran into said they came up on nests that were burnt up. They can say shorten the season or do whatever but one big problem is that they hurting the population more by burning the nests up. Controlled burns are a great thing and a lot of times that is some of the best hunting, but do it before the hen’s start laying.

I don’t know what’s going on, but the places I used to almost always be able to fool with a bird at Skyline, you’re lucky to hear one now. Something happened to ‘em. There are a few still there, but not like it was.

It's because of game check. Now everyone knows Jackson county is the best deer and turkey hunting in the state. Everybody is flocking to skyline including the dreaded OOSers because they're looking at the game check data. Any turkey hunter knows pressure will ruin a good turkey spot quick.

Pcp, thanks for resurrecting the threads. I was really asking a rhetorical question, I just wanted someone else to confirm what I already knew the answer was. It kind of reminds me of coyotes and deer. A few people realized in the mid 90s that we were going to have a problem, but it didn't become accepted in mainstream wildlife management circles until just a few years ago. I'm not trying to start unfounded rumors about the poultry industry. I have more than one very good friends that make their living with chicken houses and litter, but I think we would be foolish not to be realistic about the possible, and in my opinion, probable, negative effects on our environment. It's not just wildlife impacts either, I wonder what will happen to our groundwater quality after years of 2 ton to the acre per year, and sometimes more, of litter being applied, air quality, etc. There's literally thousands of poultry houses in southeast Alabama now and I fully understand, appreciate and have benefitted from the economic impact, but we've got to start asking some tough questions or I'm afraid wild turkeys will be the least of our worries in a few years.

Chicken litter is not your environmental worry.