mauser06

dad LOVES to feed the birds and squirrels...

for a while now we have been having the same 3 hens come and eat...dad just throws corn and birdseed on a bare hillside behind the house on the woodline...

the 3 hens are small hens...id guess born late LAST season...probably just a hair over a year old if i had to guess...they are pretty small...

my question is why dont they have poults? out of 3 hens youd figure they would managed a couple poults...

do they not breed till their 2nd year?? predation?? unsuccessful season for all 3??

just curious...mainly wondering when hens are sexually mature and able to have poults...

kinda hate the idea that they are half domesticated now...they let me walk within 10yds of them today with a bag of seed and never putted...just walked up the hill...but they are nice to see and watch, and come winter, im sure they will appriciate the food

SouthernStrut56

I'd leave em alone and not feed em. Sounds like those 3 hens may be pretty close to tame by now if you could walk within 10 yards of em. How long has your dad been feeding them? If they are tame, it seems to me like they would depend on you for everything, even mates to breed with possibly, but I'm no biologist, I'm just a thinker. Nature offers plenty of food for the wild turkey to survive. If you want close interaction with turkeys, learn to think like a turkey and hunt them and blend into the environment, don't feed em so they'll come right onto your back porch with no fear. If they have no fear, they are domesticated and will not follow their natural habits of survival. Let em be wild, let em eat what nature provides, let em interact with other turkeys and breed, learn to hunt em, then blow their heads off and eat em. If you DO decide to continue feedin em and not let nature take it's course, kill em all and eat em anyways, food for us humans may be hard to come by soon if things keep going in the same direction they are now. I'd rather blow their heads off and eat em than pay for groceries these days.

mauser06

ahhh i know they shouldnt be fed...dad just LOVES to watch the birds and squirrels and now the turkeys come....


they are dang near tame...barely moves away....they only been around the last couple weeks or so...dad didnt start feeding them till about a month or so ago....so they should have had poults by then....

halcon

Mauser06
Maybe the hens you have were to young during the breeding seasonor they could have lost thier poults to predators . Which is usually what happens . Some hensstart a second hatchin that case and some don't which sounds like what you have . They don't all have success raising poults in fact the survival rate is quite small .