Turkeys 101

[Mayfly]

Ok..who out there knows Turkeys??

I want to know what is going on with these birds?

In my "neighborhood" we have a ton of these little suckers running around. This winter the guy down the street counted 60 in his yard this winter! I always see a large flock in a couple different spots and every once ina while they come through my yard.

As of the last few days I have noticed a change. First they dissapeared for about a week. Never saw them....now they are back. The difference is that they are ungrouped. Yesterday I saw 2 together. Today I saw a group of 4. I think in the fall I noticed this as well. I figured that the hunting pressure was on and they had just been seperated for that reason. Is this lastest separation have something to do with the breeding season??

Anyone want to give me the 101?

Thanks

[kenhuntin]

yep you're right breeding season.
 Turkeys tend to group together by gender most of the year The big Toms, Jakes , Hens and Jennies hang together seperately
 When they start thinking of love They break up for a while to nest  and provide less competition amongst the boys.They are still social. Feeding together mostly in the afternoon. You should be hearing alot of goobbling soon. I noticed a Tom strutting this week. I'm not an expert but I love Turkey Hunting.

[Model12]

Ditto on that. The pecking order is or has been sorted out by now as the jakes have been slapped around and even satellite gobblers have learned their place in the pecking order. Jakes will stil want to hang out w/the "big dawg" but will be submissive. Often a gobbler will take one jake "under his wing" during the spring but will tune him up at the first sign of wanting to take one of his hens.
Hen's will maybe start making nests now but will get progressively more active over the next few weeks. They will begin to breed and in a month or so will start laying eggs. One thing I recently learned was it only takes one breeding for a hen to lay a clutch of eggs and not multiple breedings as I thought. They may be polygamous w/breeding but essentially only takes one breeding to fertilize the eggs.
Then once the gobblers put the smack down on the jakes/young gobblers, they'll tend the hens for the most part making them very difficult to call away. Jakes often will just be looking for companionship from any bird during the middle of the breeding. Then later on, when the hen's are actually sitting the nest the boys will eventually group up again and let the hens do their thing and the boys do what they do.
General rule of thumb...lots of decoys the 1st week, then tapering to few if any decoys and then towards the end, a hen or two and a jake. Obviously anything else may be what's needed but thats the general rule of thumb.
Is there any public land near these birds?!!

[Mayfly]

Well, when we had that cold weather I saw all the turkeys back together but the weather has broke and so have the turkeys. Everyday I am visited by 4 Toms. The group was larger one day but now it is at 5. They stop in every afternoon to be nervous and eat corn. I can hardly move in the house without the little turkeys freaking out! It was cool during that cold weather when they were all together. All the Toms sat together puffed out displaying all the colors, that was neat. Today the Toms just had food on their mind. When will this change and when will they respond to calls??

Is there any public land near these birds?!!

Sorry, No.