Turkey poults

[Jim K]

At my taxidermy shop, we have corn out for the turkeys so I get to watch them all summer. It doesn't look real good for poultry production this year. I'm pretty sure we lost some at the end of May with a cold rainy week end. I'm seeing some around but no where near as many as last year. I'm in south central Pa. What are you guys seeing? I worry over them like a mother.lol

[Farmboy27]

I'm in central pa as well. Saw a few batches so far. Saw an old hen with 9 last evening. They were about quail size. Saw one with 11 last week. Also saw one that only had 2!  I'm always on the lookout and I'm always a bit worried when I don't see as many as I think I should but there ain't much I can do about it!  On a side note, I don't worry or blame the weather too much with poult survival. I worry much more about the increasing predators, namely fishers. Our game commission thought it wise to reintroduce fishers to the state and by doing so introduced a perfect poult killing machine. Add in the bobcats that the game commission try's so hard to get to expand and you have double trouble!  I never will understand why certain people feel the need to restore an animal that has been absent from an environment for so many years. So much changes in those years that a once viable animal can easily become a detrimental one in today's world! 

[snapper1982]

I'm in central pa as well. Saw a few batches so far. Saw an old hen with 9 last evening. They were about quail size. Saw one with 11 last week. Also saw one that only had 2!  I'm always on the lookout and I'm always a bit worried when I don't see as many as I think I should but there ain't much I can do about it!  On a side note, I don't worry or blame the weather too much with poult survival. I worry much more about the increasing predators, namely fishers. Our game commission thought it wise to reintroduce fishers to the state and by doing so introduced a perfect poult killing machine. Add in the bobcats that the game commission try's so hard to get to expand and you have double trouble!  I never will understand why certain people feel the need to restore an animal that has been absent from an environment for so many years. So much changes in those years that a once viable animal can easily become a detrimental one in today's world!

The weather has the opportunity to kill far more poults than any fisher or bobcat. Put bad weather with those two and you have a perfect storm of sorts for low survival rates.

[Tail Feathers]

We had some wet, but we sure didn't have any cool weather since the hatch.  I suspect we did pretty good on the hatch.  It was good last year with similar, very wet weather.  I guess they learn to deal with that.

[Farmboy27]

I'm in central pa as well. Saw a few batches so far. Saw an old hen with 9 last evening. They were about quail size. Saw one with 11 last week. Also saw one that only had 2!  I'm always on the lookout and I'm always a bit worried when I don't see as many as I think I should but there ain't much I can do about it!  On a side note, I don't worry or blame the weather too much with poult survival. I worry much more about the increasing predators, namely fishers. Our game commission thought it wise to reintroduce fishers to the state and by doing so introduced a perfect poult killing machine. Add in the bobcats that the game commission try's so hard to get to expand and you have double trouble!  I never will understand why certain people feel the need to restore an animal that has been absent from an environment for so many years. So much changes in those years that a once viable animal can easily become a detrimental one in today's world!

The weather has the opportunity to kill far more poults than any fisher or bobcat. Put bad weather with those two and you have a perfect storm of sorts for low survival rates.

Every spring has bad weather. Very seldom have we ever had a "perfect spring" for poults. Turkeys are designed to survive the spring weather(if not, they would have become extinct long ago). Around here the population never seemed to suffer from "bad weather". But the last few years the population is deffinatly dropping. I'm sure that damp wet weather doesn't help but it doesn't have the catastrophic effect that some people think. Several scientific studies have been done and they all say that wet weather has little to no affect on poult survival. So really the only thing that has changed in my area is the huge increase in fishers and bobcats over the past several years. Don't tell me that they aren't an issue! 

[sixbird]

South Jersey here...Had a hen lay 15 eggs. Hatched 14. The next day (cold rain) she had 4...A couple of days later, 3. A few days later,2. And then none...
Saw a different hen here the other day. 1 poult still a fuzz ball. I'd say a few days old.
I think that cold rain did them in. I'm hearing reports from others that seem to indicate poor survival this year...

[ferocious calls]

I have 3 hens at the farm that have not shown up with any yet. Just saw them yesterday.

We had a great hatch of our own Easterns this year with 270 eggs hatching and 265 surviving. Boy do we have some beautiful poults this year. Moved the first batch into thier growing pen last evening. Was really neat to watch them roost for the first time.

Anyone looking for Easterns we got em.

[Happy]

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.

[quavers59]

I saw about 10 poults in late May in NY. A good sign!!

[turkeyfoot]

I wouldn't worry about a couple cool days or some rainy weather it takes prolonged cool and  wet weather combined  to cause hypothermia in the 1st 2 weeks of their life the hatch is usually spread out enough to have some survival even with bad periods of weather or some lost to predaton that is why 1 farm may not see many and down the road several miles another guy is reporting lot poults

[762hunter]

I went today to the farm here in W Tn and saw 3 lone hens, was thinking at least 1 of them should have had poults with her.



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[West Augusta]

Last week I had 2 hens in my backyard.  Haven't seen any poults yet.  I have been expecting them to show pretty soon.

[vman]

I see two different hens around my house everyday an neither has little ones. I'm in central nj

[West Augusta]

Had a hen walk through the yard about 1:30. No poults yet.

[Frylock]

I saw a hen with a bunch of poults yesterday, was driving so couldn't count them.  Spoke with someone today who has two hens that regularly visit her yard, one hen has 8 poults and the other has 12.   


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