WILD TURKEY MANAGEMENT

PLANNING AHEAD FOR WILDLIFE SURVIVAL

Habitat management for turkeys, as for any wildlife, lies in developing the proper combinations of food, cover, and water which produce maximum numbers compatible with other land uses.

In habitable range, food must be in proper association with cover and water. Seasonal abundance or scarcities of acceptable and preferred foods bring about changes in both habits and habitats of wild turkeys. It has been demonstrated that turkeys will shift their range because of food conditions, usually scarcities. Daily movements, too, are largely governed by the necessity of searching for food.

Fluctuations in mast, fruit, and seed supplies usually are not critical to turkeys. Low production in one type usually coincides with high production in another. The many species of white and black oaks produce maximum seed crops during different periods, so that in effect their production periods alternate and insure a mast supply. This can be explained in part by the annual potential of the white oaks and the biennial potential of the black oaks, the acorns of which require two years to mature. Wild grapes, dogwoods, and some other fruiting species appear to have heaviest crops every other season and more nearly follow a regular cyclic pattern.

Crops such as soybeans, cowpeas, variety red ripper pea, buckwheat, sorghums, corn, and cultivated millets are all desirable foods, and turkeys will use them. Deer, however, may consume most of these foods before turkeys get the opportunity. Missouri studies show that of all the cereal grains used in food plots, oats are the most successful. Turkeys relish them and deer apparently leave them alone.

FOOD MANAGEMENT

GENERAL TURKEY FOODS: The principal foods fit into a few general categories: mast (oak, pine); fruits (dogwood, grape, cherry, gum, persimmon, juniper); seeds (native grasses and sedges, corn, oats, weeds); and greens, consisting of grass and grass-like plants as well as selected annual and perennial forbs. The variety is not only in the plant species, but also in the plant parts used. These include fruits, seeds, seedheads, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems, buds, leaves, flowers, pods, and capsules.

SPRING AND SUMMER FOODS: Acorns are the number one food throughout the year, but grass and sedge leaves show an increased importance during the spring. Greenleaf material and other plant parts are taken, but corn as a crop residue is important when snows disappear. Turkey foods in order of importance are:

1. Grass leaves	6. Crabgrass seeds (late summer and fall)
2. Greenleaf material	7. Blackberries
3. Sheep-sorrel seeds	8. Paspalum seeds (grass)
4. Grasshoppers and beetles	9. Acorns (early spring)
5. Bluegrass seeds	10. Panic grass seeds

FALL AND WINTER FOODS: The fall and winter diet of wild turkey is governed by food availability in localized habitats. Generally, the more important foods are:

1. Crabgrass seeds (fall)	6. Tick-trefoil
2. Acorns (winter)	7. Sheep-sorrel
3. Corn (as residue)	8. Panic grass seeds
4. Wild grapes	9. Greenleaf material
5. Dogwood fruits	10. Grasshoppers (fall)

A management plan designed to meet the year-round food requirements of turkeys must include clearings where insects can be captured. At least ten percent of the total forest area should be maintained in scattered openings to provide optimum habitat.

FOOD PLOTS: Annual grain food plots for turkeys only supplement natural food supplies. They can, however, be helpful in times of extremely bad weather or during drastic shortages of natural food supplies.

GREEN BROWSE PLOTS: A more permanent one acre food plot can be established in forest clearings by applying recommended amounts of limestone and fertilizer and then seeding in the fall with 1/2 bushel of winter wheat and 2 lbs. of orchard grass. Overseed one half of the acre plot in the fall or winter with 1 lb. of Ladino clover and 2 lbs. of red clover; overseed the other half with 10 lbs. of Korean or Summit lespedeza. Such plantings should provide attractive, nutritious food for turkeys, deer, and other wildlife for three to five years without further treatment. Apply no more than 20 lbs./acre of nitrogen plant food to avoid excessive vegetative growth. Turkeys prefer thin stands of vegetation and may not use dense, lush stands.

IDLE FIELDS: Abandoned fields surrounded by timber are an essential part of the annual range of wild turkeys. Old fields often include former house sites with bluegrass, an important food item during spring and summer. Attempts should be made to keep old fields open and in a grass-legume mixture if possible. Mowing or moderate grazing improves the quality of these fields, since turkeys tend to avoid fields grown up in dense broom-sedge.

CROP RESIDUES: Corn fields attract turkeys during periods of severe weather in late winter and early spring when food supplies are short. A few rows of corn left standing next to timber will insure a food supply in case of deep snow. If it does not occur naturally, a portion of the corn left standing should be knocked down for good utilization by turkeys.

COVER MANAGEMENT

Turkeys prefer open, mature woods, but they will also make use of timber stands that have grown sufficiently beyond the small pole stage, providing the understory is not too dense. Studies show that sawtimber stands will carry twice as many turkeys as will the pole stages. The open understory provides a psychological condition necessary for primary turkey range. This stand condition also provides unique litter that is productive of insects and herbaceous forage utilized by turkeys.

The cedar-hardwoods of the western Ozarks show a decrease in turkey numbers due to the associated deterioration of the habitat. This deterioration has been brought about by changed land uses, exclusion of fire, and the development of grassy-cedar-elm plant succession stages, which appear unattractive to turkeys. Studies show that extensive red cedar invasion can reduce the carrying capacity of a tract by as much as fifty percent.

THE WOODLOT: Good forest management is basically good for turkeys. Forestry practices have and will continue to influence the turkey more than will any other single land-use factor. Even-age timber management by clear-cutting has been used for many years in pine forests but is relatively new in hardwood management where selective cutting has been the rule. Even-age management seemingly might create large areas of undesirable habitat. However, because of topography and soils, large blocks of even-age timber are rarely found in Ozarks.

Openings provided by this type of timber management will be beneficial for forest game. These openings permit the growth of forage and fruit-producing species for several years after timber harvest. Previous logging operations and timber stand improvement (T.S.I.) were not always successful in increasing forage yields; the openings created by the removal of one or two trees were soon closed by the surrounding canopy.

WATER MANAGEMENT

Wild turkeys require water, and ordinarily aren't found where it is lacking. Construction of one small pond per square mile, or preferably one per quarter section, where there is no permanent water will improve turkey habitat.

SUMMATION

Wild turkeys need and use three distinct habitat types annually, depending on sex and age of the birds. These habitat types are: 1)Winter 2) Nesting and 3) Summer and Fall.

Winter habitat is the backbone of the birds' annual range. Turkeys normally spend about six months (October to March) in winter habitat, which must provide a reliable and adequate food supply, plus cover during bad weather.

Acorns are the staple of the turkey's winter diet, so really top-notch winter habitat should be at least 50 percent timbered with a variety of oaks large enough to produce acorns.

Nesting habitat is quite varied, but hens usually nest around the edges of old fields, along trails, in hay fields, or in patches of blackberry briars or similar cover. Most turkeys nests are close to a permanent source of water.

Summer and Fall habitat is used during late summer and early fall, the time of year when hens and poults are seen most frequently in "open areas." These may be mowed hay fields, grazed pastures, glades, or "open woods." These areas provide the young birds with opportunities to capture insects and to browse on leafy vegetation.

In comparison to winter habitat, the size of summer and fall areas used by turkeys is relatively small, but vital. The acreage in openings may vary, but should be more than 10 percent of the total annual range, with 30 percent approaching the optimum.

To insure a dependable source of natural food for turkeys (and future timber supplies) landowners should strive for an equal distribution of age and size classes of trees on their timbered lands. this means that approximately one-third in pole-sized trees and one-third in mature saw logs. When this sort of balance is achieved it will insure a dependable mast crop, plus the added benefit of the openings created when stands of saw logs are harvested.

COMPETITION FOR FOOD: Turkeys depend heavily upon foods produced in forest habitat during much of the year. At other times, particularly during summer, the birds may be found in fields and pastures where insects, grass seeds, and berries are more abundant. Their feeding habits often place them in direct competition with both domestic and wild animals for their preferred food.

Large populations of deer, rodents, and domestic livestock can seriously deplete normal turkey food supplies. Mast may be devoured by the large animals almost as fast as it falls from the trees, while the rodents feed both in the trees and on the ground. Other kinds of wildlife probably do not seriously deplete food when it is in normal or abundant supply. The combined consumption by all woodland wildlife may amount to effective competition when foods are scarce, however.

Document ID: --
Content revision: 20030710

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