I feel awful..

Sadly it happens and nothing really can be done about it. We roll around 1500 to 1800 rolls a year. We haven't hit any this year (yet) like said above most of the nest we see are on edges and if you do cut around them they are raided it seems within 48 hours.

megalomaniac said:

Yes, it's easy.

Just provide early successional cover close by. Turkeys would MUCH prefer to nest there than in hay fields. Hay ground is one of the LEAST selected sites to nest for turkeys, even less than wide open hardwoods.

Coincidentally, hay fields are also the LEAST successful nest sites.

We only cut one up this year so far. But unfortunately, she was just days before hatching out, so she didn't leave the nest and she was killed on top of it.

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Yes. Usually a hayfield is poor nesting habitat anyways. It's just all they got. When the poults hatch, they won't be able to walk good through the dense fescue.
I hate fescue so much. It kills more turkeys and quail than every person, hawk, owl, fox, and bobcat combined.

Wish NWSG was more popular to people.

woodsman04 said:

Yes. Usually a hayfield is poor nesting habitat anyways. It's just all they got. When the poults hatch, they won't be able to walk good through the dense fescue.
I hate fescue so much. It kills more turkeys and quail than every person, hawk, owl, fox, and bobcat combined.

Wish NWSG was more popular to people.

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If it was more popular, would we lose more nests to haying though?

woodsman04 said:

Yes. Usually a hayfield is poor nesting habitat anyways. It's just all they got. When the poults hatch, they won't be able to walk good through the dense fescue.
I hate fescue so much. It kills more turkeys and quail than every person, hawk, owl, fox, and bobcat combined.

Wish NWSG was more popular to people.

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I agree to an extent. I don't think kills more turkeys then all of those predators. But we could agree about that with no real data for months.

The problem is, is as a cattle and hay farmer. We can't get away from it. It's to valuable and to cost effective to get away from. Not only that it has been around for a very long time including the hay day of turkeys.

We personally don't farm fix row to fix row we usually have a buffer mainly to keep limbs from hitting our equipment but it still better then nothing.

I see a lot of farmer hate in here and while they certainly play a roll, and i depise depredation tags . Tennessee is on pace to lose 2 million acres of agricultural land by 2027 we have a much bigger issue of land being just gone and gone forever then farming practices imo.

MickThompson said:

If it was more popular, would we lose more nests to haying though?

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I'm not an expert on NWSG for hay, but I believe optimum time for cutting it for hay is late June instead of late May/ early June like fescue. If that is the case, it would make a HUGE difference.

But I don't think anyone could get close to hay tonnage production from NWSG compared to fescue

We've had a pair of killderes trying to nest in the gravel drive since February, she lays 4 eggs and sits them but something always gets them. This happens every year. I was going out at daylight this morning and saw the little ones with the momma flapping playing hurt. They must have hatched last night. I got them out of the way and hoped they stayed to the side while I drove on past. They are about the size of the last joint of my thumb and perfectly camouflaged in that gravel. I hope they make it but between the traffic and the predators I doubt they will.

I did the same thing. Lesson learned. Farmer sprayed the corn in my front field a few days ago. Know of at least one nest in those and hes probably cutting hay next week. Its not coyotes and coons reeking havoc on turkey numbers. It us

redblood said:

I did the same thing. Lesson learned. Farmer sprayed the corn in my front field a few days ago. Know of at least one nest in those and hes probably cutting hay next week. Its not coyotes and coons reeking havoc on turkey numbers. It us

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Not really...

Sure, we chop up a pile of nests every year. But it PALES in comparison to how many nests and hens we lose to coyotes.

On my farms, coyotes are the single greatest limiting factor to turkey population expansion. Yes, I said it... it flies in the face of all the 'nest predator' talk of killing all the coons and possums....

But at least in my neck of the woods... there aren't many coons or possums... because there are so many coyotes that eat them. Now granted, after you kill 100 coyotes, the coons are gonna explode, so they will then have to be removed.

redblood said:

I did the same thing. Lesson learned. Farmer sprayed the corn in my front field a few days ago. Know of at least one nest in those and hes probably cutting hay next week. Its not coyotes and coons wreaking havoc on turkey numbers. It us

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And if it's not us chopping them it's us propping up their nest killers with supplemental feed in the name of "helping"

Guy down the road cut/rolls my front but he skips some flat rocky stuff with prickly pears, he cut it Monday and rolled it Thursday. I went to bushhog the part he leaves and came across this in the field.