I have really been milling over what Dr. Collier is talking about with nest predation. He’s saying that a lot of nest failure are really from the hens being run off the nest by something…. The numbers that are given in these podcasts say that on average roughly 20% of the hens are killed each year but roughly 80% of the nests fail. That means that a lot of nest failures result in a failed nest but not a dead hen…….its more likely that it was a flushed hen.
So what impacts the frequency of “flushing”?.......I’d say that first and foremost you don’t want your hens nesting close to the firebreaks and roads……Yotes may not eat a lot of turkeys but they may flush hens frequently in some locations. I would think that you would want a very usable interior of a stand away from these high traffic travel zones. Same goes for SMZ's.....The closer they nest to SMZ's the more likely they are to be impacted by racoons. That probably a big dynamic at play.
Last edited by CNC; 06/27/23 04:19 PM.
