With the incubation period of 28 days, most poults are present in the last week of May or early June. Movement distances vary but more than 40 miles movements are not unusual. Movements may differ annually and geographically, depending on snow conditions. Movements from wintering areas occur between mid-March and mid-April. Become a Member Make a Donation Shop. Dominance and Pecking Order Turkeys have home ranges, not territories.
Birds fight for dominance recognizing individuals within the pecking order while sharing overlapping home ranges. Males and females have separate hierarchies. Typically 10 to 15 eggs are deposited into the nest. The female covers each laid egg with leaves and then roosts in a tree nearby until all of her eggs have been laid, Only then does she begin incubation.
After starting incubation she may sit on the nest nearly continuously for 28 days. For the next two weeks the poults and the hen will roost in as concealed and as safe a ground habitat as possible. This is the time, though, when a significant percentage of the poults are taken by a wide array of predators. At two weeks, the poults are capable of flying up into tree roosts and soon after the hen and her surviving poults will rejoin a hen-and-poult flock.
Turkeys that survive their first year, though, have little to fear from any predator except humans and can live up to 15 years in their natural habitats. In the fall, young gobblers will leave the hen flocks and form or join gobbler flocks. Predators Predators of wild turkeys are most significant during the first weeks through the first year of life, as mentioned above. Raccoons, gray and red foxes, dogs, feral cats, opossums, skunks, large birds like crows and hawks , large snakes, and even chipmunks and gray and red squirrels all will actively prey on young turkeys and also turkey eggs.
Population Control in Pennsylvania Wild turkey populations in Pennsylvania have undergone dramatic changes over the past years. The formerly abundant turkey was in the early decades of the 20th Century nearly extinct within the boundaries of the commonwealth population estimates were below individuals that were primarily located in very isolated habitat areas of Pennsylvania.
Aggressive action by the State Game Commission, though, to control and limit hunting and to initiate captive breeding and release programs enabled the wild turkey population to be re-established.
Forested areas provide soft mast and cover for most of the year. Forested areas must be well managed though for wild turkeys to utilize them.
If the forest gets too dense, the wild turkeys main defense, sight, is compromised and they will no longer use it. Prescribed burning and forest thinning to maintain a forest landscape with reasonable visibility up to 60 yards and good understory growth is essential for wild turkeys. The eastern wild turkey is an opportunistic forager that feeds on green foliage, insects, seeds from grasses and forbs, and mast acorns and nuts. The individual plant species that a turkey uses as food varies by region and by season.
In east Texas, water is not a limiting factor. Eastern wild turkeys obtain water from standing sources such as creeks and ponds, as well as metabolic water obtained through their diets. Eastern wild turkeys are prone to predation from the nesting to adult stages of life. Half of all nests are lost to predation or abandonment. Poults are especially vulnerable to predation in the first few weeks of life when they still roost on the ground. In addition, they are also more likely to succumb to starvation, birth defects, and inclement weather.
The two most common nest predators are the American crow Corvus brachyrhynchos and the raccoon Procyon lotor. Other common predators include snakes, feral pigs Sus scrofa , opossums Didelphis virginiana , great-horned owls Bubo virginianus ,. In addition to predations, eastern wild turkeys are also susceptible to numerous diseases and parasites such as aspergillosis, mycoplasmosis, salmonellosis, and coligranuloma.
Males take no role in the care of young turkeys. Domestic turkeys have white-tipped tails because they are the descendants of a Mexican subspecies that was taken to Europe for domestication in the early 16th century. The feature distinguishes them from most modern wild turkeys, though captive diet, lifestyle, and breeding have caused other physical discrepancies. All rights reserved.
A Narragansett turkey, a breed of wild turkey, photographed at Knoxville Zoo in Tennessee. Common Name: Wild Turkey. Scientific Name: Meleagris gallopavo. Type: Birds. Diet: Omnivore. Group Name: Rafter. Size: Body: 3. Weight: 5. Size relative to a 6-ft man:. Least concern.
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