I am sitting here this morning thinking about building an ark! :smileystooges: I was supposed to be out hunting today and tomorrow but it looks like storms for the next three days. We have already broke the record for the most rain in April and are close to the most rain in 1 month on record! :banghead:
So the question is how will all this effect the turkey hatch?
I know the flooding can't help because the hens like to make there nests in the river bottoms. Is it just me or has the turkey population taken a pounding the last 5 years or so?
I would not be surprised. We have a hen (I raise Naragansetts) sitting on a clutch and she has been soaked for weeks. They have a covered coop, but she won't lay there (I think it is fear of being cornered by a raccoon - ugly incedent that claimed her sister-turkey). I think as long as the upper surface of the eggs remain dry they will breathe enough . . . but she has to eat sometime. I imagine the wild birds are no better off; but they are amazingly resilient critters. Better it should be wet for the eggs and drier when the poults are hatched. That down is not as water-proof as the adult feathers.
Yeah, I think the worst for the turkey hatch is cold wet weather after they actually hatch. Obviously a flooded nest is not going to work, but I think if she needs to abandon an unhatched clutch she will often start a new one in a better spot.
besides predation wet weather is the biggest reason for poult mortality and has a huge outcome on a nesting season as a whole. that being said, the local farmers have been mowing fields as late as june and jumped hens off nests in high grass. Hopefully the late nesters balance things out overall.
Flooding will surely knock out some , around me here though there have never been so many Turkeys.