Any Turkey Habitat Improvement Tips?
- Thread starter tlh2865
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tlh2865
Active Member
I am working with eastern in the Piedmont of Virginia. Rolling hills, oak forest, abundant water sources and pasture openings.
But really I would be interested in anything in any part of the country, I can get inspiration from others ideas elsewhere.
Clover fields and winter rye grain planting’s for nesting...water sources for them to get feathers wet once a day for humidity on the nest...
Native Hunter
Well-Known Member
As a general rule, turkeys like woods that are open with very little underbrush - just the opposite of mature bucks. Turkeys rely on their eyesight to see predators, so being able to see a good distance is important to them. Deer use their noses more than their eyes, so thick cover is good with them, because they can stay hid easily. Also, turkeys need to be able to take off flying quickly at times. With such a great wingspread, they need quite a bit of room, and the more open cover is better for that too.
Another aspect of a mature (open) forest is the mast from oaks. Of course, this is important for both deer and turkey. Just create a lot of diversity with good plots, and if you have preferred roosting sites, it will come together.
PS: The value of preferred roosting areas for turkey can't be overstated, and it's something that you can't just create overnight. It's pretty easy to create deer habitat quickly, but turkeys are more picky than deer. If you don't have some good natural roosting areas for them to start with, there isn't much you can do to make them use a place more frequently.
Another aspect of a mature (open) forest is the mast from oaks. Of course, this is important for both deer and turkey. Just create a lot of diversity with good plots, and if you have preferred roosting sites, it will come together.
PS: The value of preferred roosting areas for turkey can't be overstated, and it's something that you can't just create overnight. It's pretty easy to create deer habitat quickly, but turkeys are more picky than deer. If you don't have some good natural roosting areas for them to start with, there isn't much you can do to make them use a place more frequently.
Paradise725
Well-Known Member
We hold a lot more birds on our place in the spring when we have standing beans leftover from the winter. Nesting cover needs to be thick and undisturbed from April to July.
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Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
Like native said, some big trees and open woods are needed for prime turkey habitat, which can't be built overnight, either you have it or you don't. For this reason a forest management plan should consider leaving some areas of mature mast timber just for habitat diversification so that multiple species will find the type of habitat that they prefer.
Native Hunter
Well-Known Member
One more thing - When native grasses (or grown up fields) are tall and green, turkeys avoid them completely. However, at nesting time in the spring, they will find areas where the grasses have been beaten down over the winter to the point that the turkey can have a little cover left but still see danger coming. The edges of these areas are prime nesting habitat.
HB_Hunter
Well-Known Member
The farm has a good mix of habitat types. We have only had a good number of turkeys for the last 10 years or so, but we have very good numbers now.
There are two ridges that I can almost guarantee they will be roosting on. Big mature timber and shelter from the wind depending on which way they pitch off the top.
We also have a recent clear cut that provides good nesting habitat. It’s also surrounded by big timber. With pockets of thick spots in the bigger timber.
All that to say, I have never done anything specifically for turkeys. I get pictures of them strutting and feeding in the food plots I’ve created in the timber and pictures of them using the trails I’ve opened up. Those improvements for deer seem to have helped the turkeys.
The one thing I plan to do next year is start trapping. I don’t get pictures of or see many large groups of poults. I’m hoping predator control will help some with that.
There are two ridges that I can almost guarantee they will be roosting on. Big mature timber and shelter from the wind depending on which way they pitch off the top.
We also have a recent clear cut that provides good nesting habitat. It’s also surrounded by big timber. With pockets of thick spots in the bigger timber.
All that to say, I have never done anything specifically for turkeys. I get pictures of them strutting and feeding in the food plots I’ve created in the timber and pictures of them using the trails I’ve opened up. Those improvements for deer seem to have helped the turkeys.
The one thing I plan to do next year is start trapping. I don’t get pictures of or see many large groups of poults. I’m hoping predator control will help some with that.
Buckly
Well-Known Member
I agree with the rest. Turkey need a certain amount of open area. They love green fields in the spring for bugging and grasshoppers are number one on the list. Hard and soft mast in the fall. Brushy areas for nesting, although I have seen turkey nest right out in the wide open. You probably wouldn’t have to deal with super harsh winter conditions where your at but, up North here turkey rely on well protected ares like hemlock swamps with fairly open access to water like spring seeps where they have cover and can dig for tubers in the winter. A lot of habitat for turkey you just can’t replicate if you don’t have it already. In that case, acres of corn will draw and hold turkey when you are wanting to hunt them. Then let them find their own habitat in the area the rest of the time. Trapping of predators can help but, turkey use such a huge area it’s tough to make any real impact. Around here there has been a boom of birds of prey and they pick off turkey like you cant believe.
Longleaf
Active Member
I may be getting the wrong impression from some of the above posts, and no offense intended, but I would say there is some outdated thinking in some of the above. Yes, for a long time it was thought that turkeys needed vast expanses of mature timber with open understories. That train of thought has been changing and more and more we are learning that turkeys can be much more adaptive than previously thought. There is plenty that you can do!
Turkeys have specific needs absolutely. Roosting areas, which they prefer to roost in mature timber over or near water. They need nesting cover which ideal nesting cover consists of grasses, forbs, hardwood sprouts that afford overhead and lateral cover. They also need bugging cover - in close proximity to nesting cover. Bugging or brood-rearing cover is young succulent vegetation with high insect populations that provide overhead protection from predators and easy walking for poults. The ideal situation is where the hen can see over the vegetation to watch for predators while the poults forage in and under vegetation.
Those are the basics. Gobblers also like open areas where they can strut in the spring to attract hens. Both sexes like hardwood mast areas in the fall and winter, however chufa has long been recognized as a quality substitute for acorns in pine-dominated habitats.
We are now understanding the importance of habitat diversity and juxtaposition (how different habitat types are arranged) with a preference towards having as many different habitat types as possible bordering each other with travel corridors between habitat types. Regardless of how many acres you have, you absolutely don't want it all the same.
In SC, both in the piedmont and coastal plain, we manage old field habitat with burning and rotational winter discing. We manage pine timber with burn rotations that vary from 1-5 year return intervals. We manage hardwoods for mast production and have worked to vary the age structure of hardwood stands to guard against catastrophic loss. We leave buffer strips around creeks and drainages for roosting when cutting timber, but make no mistake, we cut timber. We have daylighted roads and cut miles and miles of firebreaks that are maintained as wildlife travel corridors.
I would encourage you to get in touch with your local NWTF biologist and ask them to come out and help you do an assessment of your tract and help you define your limiting factors. Then based on that knowledge, figure out what you can and cannot do.
I will throw this in - I have a farm in the coastal plain and a farm in the piedmont. In both locations the objective has been to improve habitat for all wildlife with a specific focus on quail, turkeys and deer. What I see on my places, as well as other places managed with similar goals - early successional habitat is almost always the limiting factor and the more you can do to create it the better results you will see. If you want turkeys, or quail for that matter - your biggest struggle is almost certainly going to be managing the zone between the buckle on your belt and the sole of your boot!
Remember this too - native plants are your best friends. We are in a heck of a dry spell right now. The only agricultural plantings that are still alive are those under irrigation. The natives are taking it all in stride and carrying on as they always do. Nothing against clover, chufa, wheat and sorghum, they all have their place, but you need to first look at your native plants and figure out how to maximize them.
Turkeys have specific needs absolutely. Roosting areas, which they prefer to roost in mature timber over or near water. They need nesting cover which ideal nesting cover consists of grasses, forbs, hardwood sprouts that afford overhead and lateral cover. They also need bugging cover - in close proximity to nesting cover. Bugging or brood-rearing cover is young succulent vegetation with high insect populations that provide overhead protection from predators and easy walking for poults. The ideal situation is where the hen can see over the vegetation to watch for predators while the poults forage in and under vegetation.
Those are the basics. Gobblers also like open areas where they can strut in the spring to attract hens. Both sexes like hardwood mast areas in the fall and winter, however chufa has long been recognized as a quality substitute for acorns in pine-dominated habitats.
We are now understanding the importance of habitat diversity and juxtaposition (how different habitat types are arranged) with a preference towards having as many different habitat types as possible bordering each other with travel corridors between habitat types. Regardless of how many acres you have, you absolutely don't want it all the same.
In SC, both in the piedmont and coastal plain, we manage old field habitat with burning and rotational winter discing. We manage pine timber with burn rotations that vary from 1-5 year return intervals. We manage hardwoods for mast production and have worked to vary the age structure of hardwood stands to guard against catastrophic loss. We leave buffer strips around creeks and drainages for roosting when cutting timber, but make no mistake, we cut timber. We have daylighted roads and cut miles and miles of firebreaks that are maintained as wildlife travel corridors.
I would encourage you to get in touch with your local NWTF biologist and ask them to come out and help you do an assessment of your tract and help you define your limiting factors. Then based on that knowledge, figure out what you can and cannot do.
I will throw this in - I have a farm in the coastal plain and a farm in the piedmont. In both locations the objective has been to improve habitat for all wildlife with a specific focus on quail, turkeys and deer. What I see on my places, as well as other places managed with similar goals - early successional habitat is almost always the limiting factor and the more you can do to create it the better results you will see. If you want turkeys, or quail for that matter - your biggest struggle is almost certainly going to be managing the zone between the buckle on your belt and the sole of your boot!
Remember this too - native plants are your best friends. We are in a heck of a dry spell right now. The only agricultural plantings that are still alive are those under irrigation. The natives are taking it all in stride and carrying on as they always do. Nothing against clover, chufa, wheat and sorghum, they all have their place, but you need to first look at your native plants and figure out how to maximize them.
E_308
Well-Known Member
Weather is a huge factor for turkey numbers. I would bet rain killed more turkeys in Missouri (hatched or unhatched) than hunters did. Some of this would be indirectly = wet turkeys stink more = predator loss on the nest of the hen and eggs. Cold and wet is also a death sentence to young turkeys. I have the habitat and the food to raise turkeys but can't control the weather! Some years you just have to set back and watch, like I tell the kids you get what you get!
As far as plots I stick with cereal grains and clover. They also seem to like to bug in brassicas. Plenty of soybean and corn on a typical year in farmer's fields. I have lots of big oaks and cottonwoods for roosting. Most nesting I see is in early successional type cover. Mixed native grass, forbs, and low brush like plums, AO (don't plant it), and dogwoods. I have also found some in hinge cut areas but I would bet there success is lower there due to higher nest predator traffic.
Missouri is in for another horrible year for turkey numbers.
As far as plots I stick with cereal grains and clover. They also seem to like to bug in brassicas. Plenty of soybean and corn on a typical year in farmer's fields. I have lots of big oaks and cottonwoods for roosting. Most nesting I see is in early successional type cover. Mixed native grass, forbs, and low brush like plums, AO (don't plant it), and dogwoods. I have also found some in hinge cut areas but I would bet there success is lower there due to higher nest predator traffic.
Missouri is in for another horrible year for turkey numbers.
THE LLC
Well-Known Member
Open timber is very important---and connectivity between habitat types. A thick clearcut in the middle of a turkey travel corridor will put a stop to turkey movement. Burning helps A LOT. It can open the understory of even the thickest thicket and allow turkeys to see and travel. Trust me. Been there, done that.
dogghr
Well-Known Member
What everyone has said basically. But I agree clover/ grain plots are hard to beat. And I find as said they prefer my open wood more than the thick areas.
Roosting areas are required to keep on property.
Bugs. That’s what they like spring thru fall. Mow your plot and sit back to watch the turkeys show up. I call them my walking insecticide.
Counted about 75 one of my plots few wks ago so I have a few.
Or you can jst build a golf course. This hen had a nest jst beside a t box yesterday as we played. We moved off to the ladies tee (where I should be anyways) to leave her alone. Animals can be wierd sometimes.
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Roosting areas are required to keep on property.
Bugs. That’s what they like spring thru fall. Mow your plot and sit back to watch the turkeys show up. I call them my walking insecticide.
Counted about 75 one of my plots few wks ago so I have a few.
Or you can jst build a golf course. This hen had a nest jst beside a t box yesterday as we played. We moved off to the ladies tee (where I should be anyways) to leave her alone. Animals can be wierd sometimes.
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j-bird
Well-Known Member
All I know is that the turkey like to nest near habitat edges....
Last year I found a nest in the woods where there was a small bit of cover near a woods opening that I am using as a plot. This year I have found nests in my mixed native grasses that not far from the edge with other habitat types as well. Watch your mowing times....it's easy to kill birds or destroy nests.
Last year I found a nest in the woods where there was a small bit of cover near a woods opening that I am using as a plot. This year I have found nests in my mixed native grasses that not far from the edge with other habitat types as well. Watch your mowing times....it's easy to kill birds or destroy nests.
gut_pile
Well-Known Member
Spot on!
