Turkey seemed to be doing better in my area when farms were in the CRP program. When they shifted to crops, there was no where for poults to hide. I am sure hawks take a fair amount of young turkeys, but the nest predators are horrific on turkey nests. I found two nests raided in May a couple of years ago on the same farm before poults would have been hatched out.
I have pondered if increasing other food sources for raccoon and possum at time turkey lay eggs would help distract nest predators from looking for nests. Similar concept to increasing rabbit population to get coyotes to go after more rabbits than deer fawns.
Grant - you should have a one on one with Gavin Newsome on the importance of proper forest management and controlled burns. Their current system (in the name of climate stewardship) has proven to be an ecological disaster, not to mention the unspeakable devastation to Californians. Shameful the current leadership didn’t take the appropriate precautions to keep this from happening.
Old fields usually have thick grass, which is not good for turkey poults. You would want to knock the grass back by disking, or spraying a grass specific herbicide, but not mowing since that encourages grass. You would then see a nice flush of broadleaf weeds which is what makes umbrella habitat
Until you start trapping raccoons, you have no idea of how many of those critters are out there. I have a 16 acre plot, I set out one trap last year and caught over 50 raccoons in one spot alone. Investing in more traps this year, and the onslaught begins soon, to see what I can get this year. The deer cam says there are more out there to gather.
If you feed corn here in central OK, you are guaranteed to have raccoons AND feral hogs. Wonder which is a bigger problem to turkey nests. My guess is hogs.
Turkey seemed to be doing better in my area when farms were in the CRP program. When they shifted to crops, there was no where for poults to hide. I am sure hawks take a fair amount of young turkeys, but the nest predators are horrific on turkey nests. I found two nests raided in May a couple of years ago on the same farm before poults would have been hatched out.
I have pondered if increasing other food sources for raccoon and possum at time turkey lay eggs would help distract nest predators from looking for nests. Similar concept to increasing rabbit population to get coyotes to go after more rabbits than deer fawns.
Grant - you should have a one on one with Gavin Newsome on the importance of proper forest management and controlled burns. Their current system (in the name of climate stewardship) has proven to be an ecological disaster, not to mention the unspeakable devastation to Californians. Shameful the current leadership didn’t take the appropriate precautions to keep this from happening.
Would creating umbrella habitat be the same as Old Field Management?
Old fields usually have thick grass, which is not good for turkey poults. You would want to knock the grass back by disking, or spraying a grass specific herbicide, but not mowing since that encourages grass. You would then see a nice flush of broadleaf weeds which is what makes umbrella habitat
Until you start trapping raccoons, you have no idea of how many of those critters are out there. I have a 16 acre plot, I set out one trap last year and caught over 50 raccoons in one spot alone. Investing in more traps this year, and the onslaught begins soon, to see what I can get this year. The deer cam says there are more out there to gather.
If you feed corn here in central OK, you are guaranteed to have raccoons AND feral hogs. Wonder which is a bigger problem to turkey nests. My guess is hogs.