The mysterious brooding cover

[buckpasser]

I spend my work life trying to promote deer and turkey populations (as well as a few other species) on a specific property. Obviously, I want to do everything within my power to provide turkeys with all that they need to flourish. I’ve never seen as many per acre/mile as what we have now, but there is always a possibility of more, which brings me to my point.

Biologists agree that early succession is the key brooding cover needed for poult success. Fortunately, there is plenty of that where I work, but as always, I prefer the GON anecdotal evidence to the book worms!

What is the habitat that you have personally WITNESSED to be productive poult rearing habitat? Where have you most often encountered mother hens with broods? Please describe the cover type and the rough size.

For example; I’ve seen incredible success rates in standing/growing corn fields and a 7 acre maple flat pond. The pond is surrounded by the following: frequently burned pines, the infrequently burned mature, open pines, ag field, thick sweet gum stands, and wide mowed roads. It has been loaded with hens/poults the past few years with amazing results to adulthood. It’s not a pond really, just a fairly clean young hardwood flat.

Thanks for any info you can share!

 

[Danuwoa]

I don’t have the formal edumacation on this subject but what I’ve personally experienced is any area where several different types of cover come together is where turkeys seems to thrive. For example our place is a combination of planted pines, hardwood bottoms, swamp, with a few fields. There’s a creek running through it and a beaver pond for whatever difference that makes.

 

[buckpasser]

I don’t have the formal edumacation on this subject but what I’ve personally experienced is any area where several different types of cover come together is where turkeys seems to thrive. For example our place is a combination of planted pines, hardwood bottoms, swamp, with a few fields. There’s a creek running through it and a beaver pond for whatever difference that makes.

I don’t have formal ed either. From what I’ve seen, the GON faithful provide as much fruitful data and direction as the educated anyway when it comes to turkey biology.

Our poult thread from last year proved what common sense has told most of us, yet “science” denies. That is that there is a lag in peak reproduction from North GA to South.

 

[kayaksteve]

Seems around the house I always see hens with small poults coming or going to hayfields. Usually find atleast a couple nests in just 10 or so acres of hayfield around the house

 

[Nicodemus]

I`ve found two nests in my life. One in a longleaf savannah and one in a fairly open hardwood swamp.

 

[buckpasser]

Just to clarify, my goal is to boost as much habitat for the rearing of hatched poults. I think nesting habitat is slightly (and sometimes vastly) different.

 

[sea trout]

Ok so on a serious note..... Most of the nest I have run up on have been in small junky briars or vine growths in fairly open pine management pines, or in open fields,. Example- like I've seen some in clean thinned 20 year old pine management and there's one briar patch in there about the size of a car, everything else is fairly open. As I walked too close to the briar patch in the spring the hen flies out and near bout gives me a heart attack!!!. I never knew she was there and She waited to flee till I was almost upon her! And I've found them in fields where the whole field looks the same, then there's one thick junky spot around the size of a car that's thicker and different. Maybe because there's a bog there, or a couple old appliances or a stack of fence post that keeps the tractor from mowing that spot.
So witnessing this over the years and just pondering on it..., (I have NO turkey education other that what I witness and read then ponder on it), I've thought that maybe a good hen likes to be hidden, and unseen. But she likes to be able to see out at anything incoming. Just made sense to me.

On a silly note...., but no lie! We had a hen who would nest in the dogwoods RIGHT BEHIND our dog fence every spring for a few years in a row!! I think somehow she knew the dogs couldn't get out of the fence but their barking also kept everything else away. Not sure if she could actually rationalize that but it really happened!!!

 

[sea trout]

The above post was mainly the nest with eggs or tiny newborn poults.
Hens actually rearing poults, as in the following her around stage, I've never seen with my own eyes. The trail cameras will catch them walking across food plots often. Seems like sometimes 1 hen with a few poults and sometimes a couple/few hens with a half dozen poults. during early summer.

 

[NCHillbilly]

Around here, the hens with poults tend to mostly hang around in the old grown up pastures and brushy fields. Early successional stuff like briars, broomsedge, pine and hardwood saplings, shrubs, and such. Don't see them in the woods much at all.

 

[cj580guitar]

I have a video that I wish I could share on here to show the habitat where I’ve seen poults before. CJ

 

[WOODIE13]

Nest in multifloral rose thickets, raise poults in old pastures with autumn olive thickets, briers and grown up strip mines with grape vines, sumac and pines. Rarely see them in open fields, probably because of avian predators

 

[buckpasser]

Has anyone else seen them use tall corn fields?

 

[WOODIE13]

Our corn don't get planted until late here.

 

[WOODIE13]

Definitely see it as a deterrent to avian predators

 

[Core Lokt]

Over grown rye/wheat/clover food plots around here that are adjacent to open plantation quail woods/pines. I quit mowing the food plot at the house until June/July for this reason. Seen too many nests and poults mowing any earlier.

 

[sea trout]

Our corn don't get planted until late here.

Only moonshiners plant corn there early

 

[Gaswamp]

buckpasser thought u might enjoy this new website

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Welcome to the Wild Turkey Lab We bring research to the real world through practical conversation. Committed to creating the best access to the latest scientific research on wild turkeys and the landscapes they inhabit, the Wild Turkey Lab serves as the definitive communication platform for...

wildturkeylab.com

 

[stumblingjoe]

Interestingly I saw a hen and 6-7 quail sized poults exit a 4-5 ft high corn field today while I was checking coyote traps.. Ive seen most brood rearing success where there are several different habitats close together. Fallow fields are good. Mowed roads through large pines burned 2-3 yrs prior are good. Fence rows are hard to beat and a large problem is that most fencerows have been destroyed so that irrigation pivots can walk. Big monoculture ag and Forrestry practices have taken there toll on sussessful brood rearing habitat IMO.

 

[herb mcclure]

I spend my work life trying to promote deer and turkey populations (as well as a few other species) on a specific property. Obviously, I want to do everything within my power to provide turkeys with all that they need to flourish. I’ve never seen as many per acre/mile as what we have now, but there is always a possibility of more, which brings me to my point.

Biologists agree that early succession is the key brooding cover needed for poult success. Fortunately, there is plenty of that where I work, but as always, I prefer the GON anecdotal evidence to the book worms!

What is the habitat that you have personally WITNESSED to be productive poult rearing habitat? Where have you most often encountered mother hens with broods? Please describe the cover type and the rough size.

For example; I’ve seen incredible success rates in standing/growing corn fields and a 7 acre maple flat pond. The pond is surrounded by the following: frequently burned pines, the infrequently burned mature, open pines, ag field, thick sweet gum stands, and wide mowed roads. It has been loaded with hens/poults the past few years with amazing results to adulthood. It’s not a pond really, just a fairly clean young hardwood flat.

Thanks for any info you can share!

 

[HermanMerman]

The most recent Meateater podcast has a turkey biologist on and he talks about this at length (brooding cover, nesting cover, etc.) it’s worth a listen.