![]() ![]() Burn frequently (2 to 5 years) to encourage understory growth that provides nesting cover.Encourage up to 50% of hardwood types as oaks, American beech, and other mast producers.Regenerate pine types by clearcut, shelterwood, or seed tree methods, with the latter 2 methods maintaining mast production from retained overstory trees.Establish long rotations in hardwoods (80 to 125 years) to ensure acorns and other hard and soft mast are available.Distribute stand ages across the landscape, including early succession vegetation with extensive forbs for brood cover.In the coastal plain, mature pine, large hardwoods, gum, and cypress all provide roosting sites. In the Mountains, conifers sheltered by terrain provide winter roosting cover. They are at high risk of predation during this period. Young turkeys are able to fly to roost once they reach 2 to 4 weeks of age but they must roost on the ground until that point. ![]() It’s best to provide nesting and brooding cover within close proximity.Īt night, small flocks of wild turkeys roost in trees. Turkeys nest in the spring, laying eggs in a shallow, leafy, depression on the ground. Brood cover is characterized by early succession vegetation dominated by forbs that are no more than 18 to 24” tall, allowing the hen to see over the vegetation. Hens use open woodlands with understory for nesting, particularly in extensive bottomland hardwoods. Turkeys typically locate nests adjacent to a downed log or shrub, which provides concealment from one direction but leaves an escape route should the hen be flushed from incubation. Nesting cover is characterized by patchy to contiguous understory cover, with a mixture of grasses, forbs, and shrubs. Turkeys eat insects, spiders, and other invertebrates year round.īrooding and nesting cover often are the limiting habitat factors for turkeys on many properties, so managing for vegetation that accommodates these activities can lead to more abundant turkeys on a property. Soft mast, including from dogwood, blackgum, blueberry, and holly, are eaten during the summer, fall, and winter, when available. Hard mast, notably acorns, are a primary food source during the fall and winter. Nearby forested areas supply roost sites, hard and soft mast, insects, and other animal matter during the remainder of the year. These plant communities harbor abundant invertebrate foods (e.g., spiders, grasshoppers, beetles) that contribute the protein needed by poults for rapid bone and tissue growth. These areas also provide critically important brooding areas with ideal structure to hide young turkeys, called poults, and still allow the hen to monitor for predators. About 90% of a wild turkey's diet is plant matter, including seeds and fruits, and the remaining 10% is animal matter (Table 1).Įarly successional plant communities dominated by grasses and forbs provide seeds, fruits, and forage, and harbor insects. Turkeys eat almost anything they can swallow. ![]()
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