Turkey poults

[owlhoot]

Hope they got threw the wet spring here , population seems on the rise and could miss a few bad hatches for a few more years

[sixbird]

Saw a hen today, in my yard, with 5 little fuzz balls. Couldn't have been more than a few days old...That's encouraging...

[Spring Creek Calls]

Saw a hen tonight with 8-10 chicks about the size of quail here in SW MI.

[BowBendr]

I finally saw some today in the mountains of western NC. Weather has been fairly decent, now if they'll just stay out of the road....



Gods of Thunder
2015 Old Gobbler contest Champions

[Hooksfan]

Saw 10-12 today with four hens in Southwest Missouri. They were all about pigeon sized--past the most critical period.

[Tail Feathers]

Personally I worry about hawks as much as anything else at this stage of the game. We are absolutely loaded with them around here. Some bobcats,fishers and weasels but mainly hawks. I think they grab more pults than most realize.

I'm not a biologist by any means, but it just hit me when I read this that it may be part of our recent turkey population successes.  We have a lot of thinned pines from the past couple years and plenty of undergrowth beneath them.  I bet that helps protect young poults from airborn predators.

[born2hunt]

I took the wife and kids on a drive around one of our South/Central Florida   WMAs this Saturday. We rode for about 4 hrs and probably saw 40 birds, several jakes, a few Toms and a bunch of hens but not the first poult. I was scratching my head the whole time and kept mentioning  to my wife every time we passed a group of hens how I couldn't believe there were no little ones.  When we got back to the check station I was talking to the girl in the office and I mentioned we had seen some turkeys,  she asked how many poults I had seen and said the counts were not looking good at all, she was concerned that the wet weather effected the nests more than usual. Not a good sign for next year.

[Happy]

Just checked on the hen next to my house. She is down to 6 now. Looks like they are getting their flight feathers

[Marc]

I just went to drop off a thank you card and small gift for a land-owner (who unfortunately I believe has passed on)...

I saw two different hens with poults...  One had 10 chicken-sized poults, all of which looked healthy...  (I have no idea how many poults the other hen had, as they were in cover when I saw them).

Having not seen a poult or a jake in two years (likely due to drought and poor breeding conditions) this was a bit of a good sign for me...

[Bowguy]

I saw a whole bunch of quail/pigeon sized poults today. They were in between those 2 birds size wise. Fairly small for so late. Last week Id seen 3-4 hens with some poults but only one or maybe two a piece, they were pheasant sized or larger.
At the horse farm down the road 2 times I've seen a flock w no poults n once w only one. That's amongst a flock of birds, second flock I saw today many miles from that horse farm also had zero poults . Little bit disturbing

[indturkeyhuntr]

This hen would eat every morning and evening at the base of our bird feeders all spring and vanished for about a month. She has just shown herself the last few days with 10 poults. She has taken a liking to a dusting spot under some planted sunflowers so was easy for a camera trap to take a poult census.

[Spring Creek Calls]

This hen had 9 poults off the end of my driveway. Second time I saw her in 10 days and looks like she has kept them all.

[Dr Juice]

Great news.


All The Way!

[bbcoach]

Educate me on what weather does and doesn't kill poults?  Some say wet weather, some wet and cold weather.  With our season being in April, first of May and our temps steadily rising into the 70-80 degree mark by then, we shouldn't lose any poults to cold weather.  We do get the wet weather for spring green up at that time.  If the hens hatch their eggs then predators should be our main enemy.