Good morning y'all!!!

Hope everybody is able to close out turkey season on a final tag in the next couple of days! My extremely uneventful season came to an end last week when I tested positive for covid and trying to battle these effects, I'm in no shape to close out the season strong, in fact i have just about hung it all up!! As stated before, my season with the exception of 2 mornings on opening week, has been dreadful!! Poor weather, and even worst no turkeys have made it difficult this year!

A little ray of hope this morning, as I got up and checked a window over looking a grassy acre on my property, I noticed a big hen roaming around and in the tall grass, I noticed 8 to 10 little fluffy balls running frantically to keep up with their momma!! She actually ended up laying down in the middle of the "field" and resting for awhile! I got a picture, but I have no idea how to post pictures here anymore! (You can't see the poults anyways)... But I thought it was pretty cool!! Seems really early to already have a hatch.. But it may explain the lack of gobblers around if hens were already laying really early on!!

Anyways... I've been checking in, and congrats to everyone on here that has had a great season! Good luck in the closing days!!
Tag soup for me this year... Can't taste anything anyways!!

I had the covid back around Christmas time, couldn't smell Hoppes #9 is when i knew I had it. Smell and taste was gone for about a week and then it all slowly came back. That's a weird situation for sure. Hope you're on the mend and get well soon.

Might want to check on Ivermectin. I know some who have used it and it helped with Covid.
V

Oh yea, good to hear about poults. I think things are ahead of schedule this year.
V

Found half an egg shell tues. unable to tell whether hatched and scavenged or predated. Egg was broken around the center and only saw the one.

Looked out my window yesterday 5/11 and a hen was in the front yard. I could see movement in the grass around the hen’s feet,; on closer examination with my binoculars she had 5 poults zig zagging around her feet.

I have been told that if you find one egg and it's not in a nest.. that is usually a Jenny Hen that doesn't have the Nesting instinct quite yet but she got bred and just dropped an egg.. IDK .. what I've been told by a long time turkey hunter..

I have heard the same thing about young hens. I have a turkey egg on my desk that I found in the middle of a paved road several years ago. when it was "layed" on the asphalt it broke on one side and the contents were left in the road. A friend of mine has 50 acres in Louisa and has seen three different broods on his gravel drive in the last week.

Heard some good poult reports locally , and some from middle tennessee as well. One farmer told me he saw one hen with a group of 14 or more half grown poults this week.

Had a friend who saw 3 hens with more than 20 poults in tow. Last Saturday I saw a hen with 6+ poults and later saw a hen with 5 or so poults. So far so good.
The ones I saw were grouse size. Cicadas good for turkey...
V

WV landowner sent me some pic's yesterday of 5 adult hens with what he said was at least 25 poults, small chicken sized. Couple that with the massive group of jakes, jennies and 6 month old birds i saw last fall and it's looking good for turkeys on the mtn at the moment.

Started the hen/poult survey on base last weekend. So far looking a little better then last year, but that turned out to be only 1.5 i Believe the second poorest in 40 years.

The poults are 1/3 to half a chicken size.

Seeing a fair amount of gobblers also.

Earl

Update on what I have seen this summer in the young turkey world.

I have not seen a hen that had any poults with less than four poults. One had ten. Seen some lone hens and pairs of lone lens. Seen multiple pairs of longbeards and one group of five LB I see regular . driving in some turkey country this morning I saw five groups of birds in three mile area( No permission in any of it). Each one had 12-18 birds in it except on grip all males that was six birds(two were LB).

Friends tell me what they see and some hay guys are telling me they are seeing some very large groups. Like 2-3 hens and more than 25 poults. others are saying a singe hen and double digit poults with her. Might be a good to great hatch down here.

Also in the deer world I have never seen as many fawns around here as I have seen this year. They have been "every where " in last month or 6 weeks. Some triplets, some twins, lots of singles with mama

Outstanding report GN!


I started the offical hen/poult survey here on July 1 . It will end 31 Aug. It started out looking very good here the first 2-3 weeks, but has taken a nose dive since. We may end up as bad as last year with under 2 poults per hen. It started out around 7 poults per hen.

I dont count the ones I seen before but seeing a couple hens in the same spot early July they each had 7 and 9 poults. Here in the last 2 weeks seeing them again they each had 2 and 3 poults with them.

Now seeing a lot of single brood type hens with 0 poults.


Earl