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FARMTOFIELD

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I haven't seen a Turkey below highway 64 in Lawrence county since September, just when I thought things were starting tolook up it seems they have disappeared once again. :(
 
I'm a long way north of you up here in Stewart Co., but they're still mostly flocked up here. Vast areas have few if any birds, but that will start changing majorly during the coming days, imo. Some of the areas that have these flocks this week may have none next week.
 
I've had 3 trail cams out on our farm in southern lawrence since the beginning of deer season and I didn't have a single turkey on camera until March the 15th now I'm getting regular pics of about 6 or 7 hens and one long beard at one spot and at another cam I've got a group of 15 hens one long beard and 4 jakes. That's not that many turkeys for 1800 acres but I'm hoping some more will move in the next week or two. So don't give up rockhound you never know when a flock will move in.
 
Its still pitiful our environment is no different than anywhere else but it there are few to none.

Zack from what I was seeing last year I believe things were/are getting better but extremely slow. But people are killing the gobblers as soon as they can.

If someone finds out about one they tresspass go kill him while you're at work we had it happene last year
 
redblood said:
what is going on down there? we are 40 miles northeast of y'all and they are everywhere here
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Man, I honestly wish I could give you an answer. 7 or 8 yrs ago we had them like your area does, I could head back on our place andsee turkey any time of year. Over a period of year maybe 2 they were gone, and it stayed like that until the last 3 years and people started seeing a few.( Ex. 4 on this 1000 acres 2 on that farm) and it has increased but very slow and as stated above the male Turkey get killed fast, many by trespqssers. They have only started researching the decline in the last year or do which really concerns me because of complaining from hunters for nearly a decade. We literally had hundreds of birds like yall so I call b.s. on predation, overhunting, bad hatch, ebb and flow etc.

There has to be a more demanding factor at play here and I'm just hoping they get it fixed.
 
the only thing that has changed in our area in the last 10 years is the explosion of chicken barns. They have thrown those things up every where in southern middle tn. Then the farmers are spreading the chicken manure on their fields for fertilizer & in turn it is passing disease to our turkeys. Works the same way for the chickens. I got a buddy that is an avid turkey hunter but now owns a chicken barn....if he kills a turkey he kain't go back in the barn for 3 days & his wife has to work it. Why? bekause he kould possibly pass disease to his chickens from the turkeys. The problem is not going to leave the area. I know 2 men that spread it on their fields within the last few weeks.
 
silentk said:
Then the farmers are spreading the chicken manure on their fields for fertilizer & in turn it is passing disease to our turkeys. Works the same way for the chickens. I got a buddy that is an avid turkey hunter but now owns a chicken barn....if he kills a turkey he kain't go back in the barn for 3 days & his wife has to work it. Why? bekause he kould possibly pass disease to his chickens from the turkeys. The problem is not going to leave the area. I know 2 men that spread it on their fields within the last few weeks.
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Wow, that's a new one for me. Never heard of that before.
 
There might be something to your theory of the chicken litter, but I would have to see more data before I could put a whole lot of stock in it. We spread litter on some of our fields almost every year and hasn't phased our birds here. A young lady was able to harvest her first bird off of one of those exact fields this past Saturday on the juvenile hunt.
 
hcdeerman said:
There might be something to your theory of the chicken litter, but I would have to see more data before I could put a whole lot of stock in it. We spread litter on some of our fields almost every year and hasn't phased our birds here. A young lady was able to harvest her first bird off of one of those exact fields this past Saturday on the juvenile hunt.
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Silentk is not the only one that thinks this. Twra is doing a study on this very thing this weekend in Bedford county. Everyone that kills a bird in Bedford county Saturday is asked to go to Flat Creek store with it so they can take a sample. They are going to test the samples against the ones they take from Gile, Lawerance, & Wayne county to see what is different. We have a ton of chicken houses here and have not seen a decline in birds so they want to see why they have and we haven't.
 
I know what happened Rockhoud...chupacabra got em! I have heard there are 2 areas of TN that have just went completely devoid of turkey and no explanation by any biologist what so ever. Hope it gets figured out soon for your sake.
 
timberjack86 said:
Is the population low in Bedford county? Everytime I pass thru I see lots of birds. Way more than I ever see in my home county.
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No it is fine. That is why they are testing our birds against the others to see what is different.
We have had chicken houses on every farm in the county just about for yrs. Way before there was even a season for turkeys. The thinking is that some how our birds have built up a resistance to the chickens.
 
I heard that in Lawrence county the Amish mafia had moved in and had developed a black market for wild turkey meat. Better start watching those buggies a little closer!
 

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