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??

Last 3 years have been really wet springs here. Supposedly bad for poult production. Last year was absolutely the worst I’ve seen. It was like Forrest Gump’s version of Vietnam when it rains. I’d assume why we had a late hatch. Was seeing youngish poults in July/August and last fall good size flocks and could still easily tell poults form adults.

Scent travels a long ways on the wind on cold wet nights......When its actually raining its tough to scent anything but as soon as it stops its on like neck bone if moist air is still present.....If it rained pretty much non-stop all night then nesting hens would probably be completely safe for that night......The worst scenario would be to rain good right after dark and then stop and moist wet air stick around the rest of the night with just a little wind.....In that scenario there's a lot of hens that are going to be vulnerable to be detected for that night......Their scent is gonna get carried out for quite a ways

Some people call this the "wet hen hypothesis" but really its just basic scenting principles

Consider the no mow in May campaign. That’s when I started noticing the decline. Causation or correlation? I talked to a biologist that work in an area that was restocked during the 80s. He found that the hens were leaving because they didn’t like the nesting habitat. Basically the greenfields were ryegrass and too thick for poultry production. Once he switched to cereal grains they seems to come back and we were able to unit again in the late 90s early 2000s.

I see hens with young poults in shorter grasses and or disked ground. I’d imagine poults have differing needs during their earlier days. I’m sure their needs change as they age

Bunch grasses and other plants that have overhead cover and bare ground seems to the best options. Just like quail habitat in their early days. Just thinking out loud.

What is this bare ground you speak of?

I know what you mean buddy. Heck I don’t care to pull the trigger on them as much anymore but you let those birds start getting comfortable enough to strut by the highway and next thing you know that place is getting leased. Kinda better to kill em and be discreet about it. The last thing most landowners want to see is something killed off their land.

We got plenty. Turkeys don't like to be seen.