Turkey Facts
Wild Turkeys, Warner NH
1. Source: UNH Wildlife Profiles
Written by Ellen J. Snyder, Wildlife Specialist, and Geraldine Tilley, UNH
Cooperative Extension.
Wild Turkey
(Meleagris gallopavo)
Description:
Toms (males) weigh 18-24 Ibs or more; hens (females) about 10 Ibs. Plumage
is iridescent bronze; dark in males and tips rusty or light brown in
females. Wings and fan-shaped tail show alternating dark bands. Neck and
head of adult males is reddish, while females have bluish heads with more
feathers.
A dewlap (fleshy growth hanging under chin), caruncles (growths located on
the side and front of neck), and a snood (a fleshy projection rising above
the bill) adorn males. A beard (like bristles on a broom) hangs down from
the chest; typical in males and in5% of females. Males have spurs I/4 to
I1/4 inch long on the lower legs.
Range and Distribution:
A non-migratory native of much of North America from s. Canada to c. Mexico.
Habitat loss and over harvesting eliminated wild turkeys from New Hampshire
more than a century ago. NH Fish and Game began transplanting wild turkeys
into the state in1970. Today the population is 7,000; turkeys are present in
every county. Severe winter weather and lack of suitable habitat limit the
distribution of wild turkeys in northern NH.
Habits and Habitat:
Turkeys forage on the ground in flocks, occasionally mounting shrubs and
small trees. Acorns, beechnuts, cherries, and ash seeds are primary food
sources. Seeds, berries, grasses, sedges and insects are important summer
foods. Turkeys eat corn, rye, oats, alfalfa, soybeans, millet, and
buckwheat. Grit is important. Adults eat 90% plant matter and10% insects.
Poults eat mainly insects. In winter turkeys visit seeps; they feed on
sensitive fern fertile stalks, waste corn, and persistent fruits such as
barberry, rose hips, and dried apples.
Adult males gobble to attract females and to repel competing males. Both
adults make a variety of noises - yelps, clucks, cackles, purrs, rattles,
and gobbles. Wild Turkeys are polygamous. Toms gather a harem of hens by
gobbling, strutting, and using dramatic plumage displays. Mating occurs in
April and nesting in May. The nest is typically a small depression lined
with dead leaves. Nests are located in areas with a well-developed
understory or in cut-over areas with slash.
Hens breed in their first year while adult males out compete one-year old
males ("jakes"). Hens lay 8-15 eggs. Poults hatch in 28 days typically in
early June.
Coyote, fox, and fisher are the major predators of adult turkeys. Hens will
often abandon a nest if disturbed during incubation. In late summer, hens
and their broods often band together to form large flocks. Wild turkeys take
advantage of different habitats throughout the year based on their food and
nesting needs. In the fall, turkeys forage in mast-producing stands of
oak/hickory, oak/pine, and northern hardwoods. Hardwood stands with
south-facing slopes and seep areas are favored in winter. Large softwood or
hardwood trees are needed for roosting. Wild turkeys forage at farms in
winter.
Openings, including pastures, hayfields, burned areas, clear-cuts, blueberry
barrens, and natural savannas, are a key component of their habitat. These
areas support low herbaceous or grassy ground cover and insects needed for
brood-rearing.
Wild turkeys aren't territorial. They travel over 4 to 5 square miles during
the year, although during the winter and nesting season they often restrict
their movements within 100-200 acres. Turkeys are active during the day,
roosting in trees from sundown until sunrise.
Management:
Long rotation management that maximizes mast production is an optimal
strategy. Even-aged management that effectively regenerates food sources
such as black cherry, white ash, and oak is preferred. Minimize forest
cutting during the nesting season (April/May/June) to avoid disturbance.
Maintain key habitat features such as spring seeps, beech knolls, oak
stands, understory vegetation (apples, hawthorns, witch hazel, and
viburnums), and thickets or patches of juniper, sumac, barberry, grapes, and
bittersweet. Five to 30% of a turkey management area should be in herbaceous
openings. A section of corn (25' x 100') left standing through winter can
feed a flock of 60 turkeys.
UNH Cooperative Extension programs and policies are consisternt with
pertinent Federal and State laws and regulations on non-descrimination
regarding age, color, disability, national origin, race, religion, sex,
sexual orientation, or veteran's status. College of Life Sciences and
Agriculture, County Governments, N.H. Division of Forests and Lands,
Department of Resources and Economic Development, N.H. Fish and Game
Department, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service and U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Services cooperating.
Source: NH Extension, Wildlife Profiles
2. Source: VA Depts of Forestry, Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences and Game and Inland Fisheries
Wild Turkey
Once thought of as a bird of the mature hardwood forest only, the wild turkey has
surprised professional biologists, foresters, hunters, and landowners by adapting to pine
plantations and restricted hardwood stands in agricultural areas. Wild turkey flocks need
secure roosting areas, open lands for brood rearing, and several miles of suitable terrain
over which to find food and cover during the different seasons and from one year to the
next. Other critical ingredients in turkey range are protection from free-ranging dogs,
illegal hunting (poaching out of season, exceeding legal bag limits, and the taking of
hens during the spring), and motorized vehicles. Research has shown that turkeys avoid
roads open to motorized vehicle activity, but turkeys will use roads that are gated to
restrict access.
Forestry practices resulting in mature hardwoods favor wild turkeys. Rotation ages of 125
years or more are recommended to maintain mast production from hardwoods. One approach is
to restrict harvest to 8 percent of a prime oak stand, cut in 10- year intervals. When
oaks are managed to produce top-grade sawlogs, the result is a forest that will produce
large amounts of acorns in good years. Such practices as timber stand improvement can be
used to benefit both the economic and wild turkey yield of the hardwood stand. If the
landowner has chosen to cut a mixed hardwood-pine forest and replant it to pine, wild
turkeys will not necessarily abandon the property if cutting units are 40 acres or less
and BMP's are employed. A key to retaining wild turkeys on large holdings, especially pine
plantations, is to insist on maintaining strips of hardwoods along all streams and between
cutting units. Watersheds can be connected over steep ridge tops by leaving hardwoods.
These wet and steep areas are not good growth areas for pine, so the landowner loses
little in return for the chance that wild turkeys will continue to be on the property.
Restricting use of herbicides to control hardwood competitions to application only on the
hardwoods that are in the immediate vicinity of the pines may be desirable. This, however,
is more expensive than aerial applications over the entire stand.
In forested areas where pastures and crop fields are not common, the number of wild turkeys is likely to be limited by shortage of brood range. Wild turkey poults, as well as quail and grouse chicks, depend on insects, spiders, and other invertebrates during the first month of life. These energy and protein-packed foods are most abundant in openings. Convenient ways to provide critically important brood range are to daylight logging roads and to plant logging roads and log landings with grasses and legumes (Table 2). A valuable fall planting mixture for turkeys is one comprised on winter wheat and annual clover (crimson clover). During the late winter and early spring, adult turkeys will feed on the lush green forage provided. During the late spring and early summer, adult turkeys and young poults will feed on the wheat seedheads as well as the abundant insect life found in these plantings.
The landowner who wishes to regenerate hardwoods following clearcutting should leave strips of undisturbed woods along the streams, spring seeps, moist hollows, and bottoms. Removal of individual trees is permissible, but destruction of these corridors of timber reduces the value of the whole tract to wildlife and fish. Allow at least some grapevines to grow to maturity when the new stand develops. These vines may result in deforming some hardwoods that would be crop trees, but grapes are a very important and dependable fall and winter food for wild turkeys and other wildlife. Grapes that hang on after the frost fall to the forest floor when the winter wind blows, providing food when other mast crops are unavailable.