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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