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…..according to Dr. Lashley… ..He said everyone needed to share it with as many folks as we could because this is what was gonna fix the problem…….So here it is…….

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Gusswrx5M8MMmqfjiY76Z


I’m still trying to wrap my head around exactly what all I just heard…… I hear you with the idea that having a bunch of woody stems around a nest makes it harder for the hen to flee from a predator and that’s valuable information……but we’re not hanging our hat on that as being “the problem” though are we???.. ..Is that what I’m hearing?? …….It kinda sounds like it……I mean, its good information to consider and manage for…..but the real culprit is still the critters that are chasing the hen off the nest to begin with and the frequency with which they do that……Its like ok great, the hens have a higher percentage getting away on those 1000 attempts by coyotes to catch them when there are less woody stems…..but the problem is still the 1000 attempts…..What percentage of your hens are having to renest a second, third, or fourth time because of those attempts??..... Because according to the data in this episode…..another 16% of the hens are killed with each one of those renesting cycles

If I’m understanding that correctly then here’s what that looks like……….I’m just plugging in some numbers just to show what the concept might look like in action. I would think the success rate of the predators should go down some with each renesting as there are less targets on the landscape.....but never the less.......

1st nest attempt
100 hens nest…….16 are killed………of those that nest 50 are flushed and have to renest………..

2nd nest attempt
50 hens nest 8 are killed……….of those that nest 25 are flushed and have to renest

3rd attempt
25 hens nest and 4 are killed………..of those that nest 10 are flushed and have to renest

4th attempt
10 hens nest and 1 is killed……..of those that nest 2 are flushed and never successfully nest

Total hens lost 29 out of 100

I was looking up some numbers to see how close my guesstimate may be and AI shows that I’m way low……

"70% to 85% of wild turkey hens lose their first nest, primarily due to ground predation, weather, or human disturbance. "

Lets see what our scenario might look like at 80% disruption and I’m gonna decrease that rate some with each renesting attempt since that is likely what would naturally happen I believe

100 hens nest…….16 are killed……….80 are flushed and renest

80 hens nest……..12 are killed………60 are flushed and renest

60 hens nest……..8 are killed……….40 are flushed and renest

40 hens nest…….4 are killed……….24 are flushed and never nest

40 hens out of 100 lost

Obviously the numbers arent exact and are more less just being plugged in to show a concept…… BUT…… some form or fashion close to that outline is occurring each nesting season……. I’m sure it varies across the landscape……My point being that first and foremost it’s the flushing and disruption that’s the real source of the problem with nesting hens……If 80 out of every 100 hens are getting flushed off their nest then we have a bigger root problem than just woody stems around the nest location

I listened to that yesterday and it was interesting. The disturbing part to me is that Lashley said with the current trends in nest success, poult success and hen mortality, the population can't grow. Maybe not those exact words, but something close to it.

I do know Harper has been saying lately with the current trends we need great habitat and we need to be trapping.

The problem with trapping is a lot of us don't live near our property, so it's tough to run a trap line consistently. I'd love to hear ideas on what absentee landowners could be doing to knock the predators back.

Correct…….basically what he is saying is that in the scenario I laid out above, if we get to a point where we are losing 50 ish hens out of 100 then the other hens could still see high rates of hatching and poult rearing and it not matter because you lost so much of the adult population……First and foremost the hens have to be able to sit on the nest without being repeatedly flushed and eaten…..There’s quite a few structural components of the habitat and landscape that go into determining that

If I heard them right then something else interesting they threw out in that episode was that I believe they said they had a higher percentage of hens killed amongst the ones that didn’t nest than the ones that did……Kinda need a little more context around that to fully understand it……I wonder if some of those are hens that kept dropping an egg or two and then abandoning it over and over and those ended up being some of the 24 we had at the end of our scenario above that never nested…….I’m sure they’ll tell more about it on future episodes

While we’re on the topic of coyotes……Something they talk about a good bit on the podcast is the vegetative structure around the hen in terms of how it provides visual cover for her……When it comes to the hen hiding from predators its always about her being visually camouflaged……However…..I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of hen mortality occurs during the night……and dogs just don’t go around in the dark “looking” for prey with their eyes…….they look with their nose…..Just sayin……I’m not for sure if we’re looking at the whole picture when it comes to that……During dry springs I wonder if that vegetative understory of grass and forbs doesn’t help absorb the hen’s scent as she sits and her scent flows outward…..I’m pretty sure that scent behaves differently on the air when everything gets dry and dry plant material starts sucking up any moisture as it passes over all of the vegetation….especially dead vegetation from last years growth that’s already dried down.....Scent rides along on that moisture molecule through the air

The main point being that coyotes just about HAVE to be hunting with noses at night and that’s something that’s never mentioned in the concealment discussion…..We always act like she just has to hide from being seen

You’re talking to yourself again

If hens are being flushed off of the nest at anywhere close to a 60-80% disturbance rate……then that means that there are a lot of opportunities or occurrences for coyotes to learn from…..For any coyote that has made it through a couple nesting seasons these are likely not random hunting events anymore and instead much more calculated pursuits ……Its almost a certainty that they would know which areas to return to and target……I wonder if any are smart enough to hang by a group of eggs waiting on the hen to return….. or if they learn to come back to that same spot again later to check for her being there knowing that eggs = turkey……I would think probably so……They’re smart critters that don’t require a lot of repetition to learn…..

That being said……something that I would think we probably would have to start focusing more on with trapping for folks that are in your situation would be what I guess you could call “precision trapping”……..Instead of just trying to indiscriminately trap a volume of coyotes at any given time…..the goal would be to go in during Feb/March with the intent of just removing enough that you know you got the resident dogs on your property…….basically insuring that the coyote age structure on your property is always young each nesting season with new adolescents moving in that haven’t yet “learned” how to hunt turkeys more efficiently….I don’t think you want to let the same mating pair hunt multiple seasons on your property because they will surely get better at it

You're surprised??? With his last thread winding down, it's time to start another marathon.

AI says there’s nothing in the literature……maybe there is and I just cant find it……. But something I think would need testing if we really wanted to understand what’s occurring with hen mortality is how height and density of the vegetation as well as stand size impacts where a hen chooses to nest relative to the distance from roads and firebreaks…….How is that impacting predation rates……especially in heavily burned systems like quail plantation land??.....In other words, are the hens only using the most vulnerable edges of a stand and how would predation-disturbance rates change if we made the interior larger and more usable??

Well dang.....still need to do some tweaking to the outline........I could have sworn I read where hens will nest up to 4 times but apparently that's only on rare occasions with super healthy hens......the average is 1-3 times.......AND......I guess we actually need to take away a certain % each time for ones that dont attempt to renest or only attempt it once......

If a hen is only going to renest once or twice then you REALLY, REALLY, REALLY dont want them being flushed off of nests by coyotes at a high rate.....You may only have a couple tries at it....Its not just about hen mortality rates……..A “vital rate” that is just as important that goes right along with that is the rate at which hens are being flushed off of the nests by coyotes……

If the hen’s health is the major driver to whether she’ll attempt to nest once, twice, or three times……..then low health coming out of winter combined with a high rate of flushing could have the game over before it even begins so to speak……. This might be what accounts for some of those hens folks see walking around without poults

I was giving this a little more thought as well and I have a guess on what is driving this outcome...... it would be that hens are much safer when they’re all grouped with lots of eyes watching for danger…..I would imagine the level to which every young turkey pays attention is not the same and some get by because of everyone else watching……Sooooo…..when they all break up to nest and some get left alone for the first time……then their “security team" they’ve been depending on is gone and they become much more vulnerable moving around in the open as unwary individuals……

Ok lets try this one mo time to see we can get it closer to realistic……..

Lets say we have an 80% nest disturbance rate……. a 16% hen mortality rate……and we’re gonna go with a 70% renesting rate on the second attempt and a 35% on the third…….so that means……

1st Attempt
100 hens attempt to nest (x 80% disturbance x 16% mortality)
20 are undisturbed
80 flushed of which….
13 die leaving……
67 hens…. of which 70% renest and 30% don’t

2nd Attempt
47 hens renest (x 80% disturbance x 16% mortality)
9 undisturbed
38 flushed of which….
6 die leaving……..
32 hens…..of which 35% renest again and 65% don’t

3rd attempt
11 hens renest (x 80% disturbance x 16% mortality)
2 undisturbed
1 die
8 left that never nest


Total
31 nest undisturbed
20 die
49 never successfully nest


With an 80% nest disturbance rate that’s a lot of hens that never nest…..AND…. that’s assuming we have decent enough hen health to have a 3rd nesting attempt……Just for the sake of comparison here’s what the totals look like if we cut the disturbance rate in half to 40%...........

1st Attempt
100 hens attempt to nest (x 40% disturbance x 16% mortality)
60 are undisturbed
40 flushed of which….
6 die leaving……
34 hens…. of which 70% renest and 30% don’t

2nd Attempt
24 hens renest (x 40% disturbance x 16% mortality)
14 undisturbed
10 flushed of which….
2 die leaving……..
8 hens…..of which 35% renest again and 65% don’t

3rd attempt
3 hens renest (x 40% disturbance x 16% mortality)
2 undisturbed
0 die
1 left that never nest


Total
76 nest undisturbed
8 die
14 never successfully nest

So what are all the factors that effect flushing rates??

I got some groundbreaking turkey research:


That "smokey gray" bird some dumbass thinks is a color phase is actually a heritage breed called a Narragansett.

Not reading all of this.

Summarize please?

Are we going to open turkey season on July 1st or July 10th next year?

I’ll start……….

Here’s what I think would be the major components controlling our “flushing rate”……. We’re talking about an event where the hen is R-U-N-N-O-F-T the nest and it gets abandoned

1) Predator density and age structure…… specifically yote and bobcat
2) Density, height, and species composition of understory vegetation
3) Stand Size
4) Linear feet of interior road and firebreak
5) Amount of other easier to catch prey available during nesting
6) Weather….. specifically rainfall and humidity during nesting


I think that’s got most of the main ones……Its basically, how many predators do we have?……..how much other easier to catch food do those predators have available?… and how easy is it for them to locate our nesting hens?......I didn’t list it is as a factor but those things would likely be dictating where our hens choose to nest as welll which is gonna be a big part of it

I saw three hens that color in a flock in Montgomery Co one year

We could really add to number #2……..Vegetation accounts for a lot of the ground structure in many areas but something else that adds to that structural component of the understory as well are things like all of those rocks in the mountains of Jackson Co……Tree blowdowns would be another type of ground structure that’s very prevalent ……Maybe we should just call it all "understory structure"

Pretty sure the overall answer would be pockets of nesting and brooding cover spread throughout the landscape vs being all concentrated along edges like it is on most properties. Much easier said than done for most people, like me, who are weekend warriors.

Take my place for instance, my only early successional habitat is a 40-acre block of old field sandwiched between fairly open timber. The field is great nesting and brooding cover, but turkeys aren't really using the interior. I do disk some strips in the winter to give turkey and qual some diversity and travel corridors, but I also want to manage for deer, so I need some thick, woody components as well. It's hard to make it ideal for all critters and I do believe I have heard Craig Harper say something along the lines of you have to decide what species you are managing for. That would be deer for the majority of landowners.

To me, the ideal property would be more of a checkerboard of timber and old field. I'm trying to set mine up that way, but I doubt it will get there in my lifetime.

I think the most efficient nesting and brooding is gonna come from large stands that have nearly 100% usable interior…….where the vegetation is thin enough and short enough that hens will freely move through all of it and nest in the thicker clumps of this and that’s scattered amongst it…….. away from the roads and edges that get heavily traveled by predators……. I don’t see how any hen could nest 20-30 ft off a firebreak and not get detected and flushed over 28 days……The smaller the stand and thicker and less usable the interior……the higher the flushing rate should be over time generally speaking……Of course those other variables still factor in to any given years success

Take this with a grain of salt but I believe managing with rotational grazing and fire would manage for optimal conditions for the big three……deer, turkey, quail………Its basically a 2-3 year fire rotation with 2-3 month grazing rotations added in between fires to keep the vegetation beat back and in that ideal structure and growth phase……We are missing a huge link in the chain here in the southeast without having that component involved……The vast majority of the habitat we create is only productive for a short window of time before it grows up too tall and thick and the scales tip heavily into the predators favor…….

Now I aint saying you gotta get cows but that ^^^^ is the concept and blueprint that somehow needs to be replicated if we really want to see the best results……That’s one of our biggest hurdles to get over here in the southeast……We have extremely high rainfall and plant growth rates due to our climate and we have taken away the ecosystem component that’s supposed to moderate that growth and form structure from it.....We're missing the impact of bison and elk herds

How far is a hen going to wade into this stand to nest??......To make this a little more real for those of you keeping count.....the new solar farm is just a couple cow pastures over from that wood line in the back.....

I know that picture is a little bit of an extreme situation with the grass but its also very relevant to what happens in fertile black belt soil……..The problem is that someone can go take a picture 2 months post burn in June and show what looks like ideal conditions……They’ll say “ Yeah its got a lot of grass in it but just look at all the other great plants….yada yada yada….”……And that’s true to an extent…..There are some other good plants growing there that are beneficial for a brief moment in time…….Then another month or two later after the pic or video is taken, that dense native grass is head high and it stays that way for the next 20 months…….That image we are always shown is only a brief snapshot in time and only represents a small fraction of the life of that rotation…..The following spring after the pic or video is taken, hens are likely nesting 20-30 ft off a firebreak because the interior of the stand is too thick and no longer usable space

In my opinion, here’s the fallacy in our thinking with cutting stand size down to 20-40 acres like many recommend these days as optimal……

We have recognized through studies that due the thickness of the vegetation in many areas…..once a stand passes a certain acreage threshold that the interior fails to get utilized……and the bigger the stand gets the more interior space there is that goes unused…..Just to plug some numbers in to show the concept lets say that a hen is only willing to wade 150 ft max into that grass stand in the pic above to nest…….If we make that grass stand 1000 acres……then that means there are 89 acres being utilized around the perimeter or 8.9% of the total stand………

So now here’s how we’ve proposed to solve this issue and where the fallacy comes in……If we cut that stand down to 40 acres and the hen uses the same outer 150 ft…….Now we’re utilizing 17 acres out of 40……which is a 42% utilization rate……If we cut the stand down to 20 acres then we are at nearly 100% utilization and we say that must be far better because we are using more space this way……. when in reality the hens are still nesting within 150 ft of the edge in either scenario and that’s what really matters when it comes to disturbance rates in these systems plagued with coyotes…….The hens are still just as vulnerable to the high rate of predation traffic that occurs on the roads and firebreaks…….even more so now because you’ve created so much more edge to be exploited……meaning that even more hens can be put in a vulnerable position to be flushed ……..

It wasn’t the size of the stand that needed adjusting to fix the utilization issue…..It was the density and height of the vegetation in the interior

The most important bit of information about this whole concept that seems to be getting completely lost on the research that’s going on ……is that if coyotes flushing hens off of the nest and killing them is one of our main issues…….then it’s scent that’s getting them detected……Coyotes don’t hunt at night with their eyes…..they hunt with their nose……and that’s why the 150 ft edge ^^^^^^ matters so much………If that aspect is not researched then we’re really not looking at the whole picture

If y’all want to know the truth about a lot of the land that everyone thinks is so great….. its that’s its WAY off from its true potential because of generalized management practices being followed across a varied landscape…………The property I’m on in the pic above is one of my favorite places to go and the owner has always been super great to track for……BUT…….he’s able to manage the property by quite literally just dropping fire and letting it rip in late winter….…..and as a result you have black belt soil growing a lot of excess grass……This comes from the “influencers” pushing for the use of a particular tool more than a pushing for a particular result……The goal is to maintain an optimal density and height of the understory structure and an optimal species composition……..not to simply rip fire……That gets lost on the public though and the reason why is pretty obvious when you listen to a lot of “the experts”.

With season extending into a lot more hens are getting flushed off the nest. See people sharing pictures all the time of nest full of eggs where they have flushed a sitting hen.

That definitely isnt helping anything that's for sure.......At least when a hunter bumps a hen you have some hope of the hen coming back to it.......Any that dont though is just additive disturbance to go along with the yotes and bobcats

I haven’t seen one come back after flushing.

That’s not good……You know now that you bring it up…..I bet just the shear increase in the number of turkey hunters roaming around the woods during the spring over the last 20 years or so has increased the overall flushing rates across the board…… just adding to whatever the yotes and other critters may be flushing……

I was reading more about it and the literature says that if its early in the incubation period that the hen likely to abandon the nest……Its toward the end when its close to hatching time that she’s more likely take risks in returning……..

I have, more than once. Flushed one off nest while bush hogging a few years ago. Missed the nest fortunately. Mowing close by the nest the next day I flushed her again. Mowed away from nest and parked tractor in shade where I could see the nest. She came back to the nest within 15 minutes. I had left cover around the nest. Checked it a couple of weeks later and there were 13 hatched out eggshells in the nest

I’ve been told it depends on how far along the incubation is.

I know I flushed one that never came back and I had one that was in cover crop while planting beans. I planted around the nest and she hatched those 8 and I saw them is they grew. I went back to the nest site after she left and replanted that area.

But the eggs are delicious. Very rich

I’ve never had one come back I flushed on foot. I’ve had several return if flushed from a tractor. They obviously view predator threats different than equipment.

Sounds like my - hunt early, kill gobblers, and get out the woods to stop busting hens - is going to eventually win out when it comes to season structures. That and better habitat, and we may give them a chance to not go extinct.