Turkey Poult Sizes

I’ve seen a pretty big variation in the size of poults this year, with some I saw recently as small as a grouse. That’s pretty small for this late in the season.

Last night I did see some birds that were just a touch smaller than their mothers. Only 6 of them left from a group that started at more than 12. Anyone else seeing poults?

Joel

I see a small bunch most days on my commute home. They are nearing hen size. Distrubing to me is a large group of hens(8-10) I’ve been seeing all summer without a single poult.

I’m looking forward to sitting in the stand this weekend to see what Todders has left.

Yes, they’re nearing the size of the hens now. Just saw a group of 12 yesterday and probably more were out in the grass.

I jumped this same group in an alfalfa field exactly 1 month ago and when they flew, I thought they were hen pheasants at first. They were exactly that size and color.

So they’ve packed on a few pounds in the last month.

Lets hope the winter is more kind to them this year. I hunt an area near a cattle ranch with 1000+ head, so there is plenty of waste feed for the turkeys to eat, they just follow the cattle around. I can see that it would be tough in areas without a lot of livestock and they’re predicting another hum-dinger of a winter…

Grouse

We have 2 different size poults at our farm. They are all in one large group now(20 birds total, 14 are poults) The larger ones are twice the size of the others. I am assuming the one nest got hit and she tried again.

We have three different groups around my house. One group is almost full sized, one group is around 75% the size of mom, and the third group is about the size of a pheasant. My lab loves barking at them when they come to the bird feeders, but they seem to understand a dog behind glass is of little danger.