Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs Turkey Population

I think you could probably break the landscape down according to those growth cycles with the best areas seeing 1 in 3 moving across a spectrum down to the worst areas something like 1 in 12…….and everyone else falling somewhere in the middle……..and that really defining how you see things play out……..When you say that we had a couple of good hatches its likely only relative to the level of the conditions whether it impacted everyone or just some……..Did we have weather conditions line up that happen once every five years or did we have conditions that only line up once in twenty years??……

I think it revolves around temp and rainfall for several time periods of the year which creates a scenario where there are quite a few possibilities for combinations……It involves the amount of rainfall during nesting which impacts scenting conditions for predators like yotes…….. as well as the temps and amount of rainfall during brooding which could impact hypothermia and poult survival…..as well as the amount rainfall during the summer which impacts the grass production which drives the amount rodents and overall prey abundance for raptors, etc, etc……..

I would guess that the best combination of conditions would be a wet summer followed by a mild winter followed by a dry April followed by a warm May……..…..It seems like the less hens that die each year and the more nesting/brooding habitat you create…..the more you only need normal conditions that line up right every few years to see growth ……If you protect the hens and provide brooding habitat then its probably rodent and tweety bird booms every few years that overwhelms raptors with targets and allows a bunch poults to make it through that really drives the frequent growth cycles…… If we do have a boom year where a lot of additional hen poults are created then how many of those will still be alive in another 3-4 years when the next boom of rodents and tweety birds occur??......

I think that’s why they’re saying hen survival is so key……If a hen doesn’t live long enough to hatch off and raise a successful brood then she might as well have just died as an egg…..correct??