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Author Topic: Hen behavior and flock hierarchy  (Read 962 times)

Offline The Lung

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Hen behavior and flock hierarchy
« on: April 07, 2022, 01:01:36 PM »
I have been wondering for awhile about something that happened on the last day of Oklahoma fall turkey season, Jan 15, 2021.
I was set up in a tree stand with the crossbow, this was also the final day of deer archery. I had a turkey roost within about 150 yards that I had been watching all season. As far as I could tell from cams and my own eyes, this was a flock of hens and young turkeys. I also had a small group of toms on cam and I was hoping the toms would be joining the hens soon.
As the turkeys flew down, they were in an area I could not see, but I could hear them. I could hear several distinct hens yelping so just for fun, I put a mouth call in and tried to mimic the sounds. At times, it seemed we were talking back and forth. As she yelped I would also cut her off aggressively with my yelps, trying to "talk over her"
The idea I guess would be to pull the entire flock over to my stand and see if some of those toms had joined the family.
As we yelped back and forth for what seemed like forever, I could tell she was getting closer, but still couldn't see her.
At this point I knew it was mainly one hen in a group of about 30 that was yelping back.
Suddenly she comes flying over the trees and right under my stand. She was all alone and we both stopped calling. I watched her wonder around my area for some time looking for whoever had been talking to her over the trees. At no point did the rest of the flock come with her, hens or toms. She was on the small side and I don't think she was the dominant hen of the flock.
Did she come over as a "sentry" to investigate the interloper? Did the dominant hen have zero concern and the young hen went rogue?
Just curious what thoughts are on this behavior.
"Dear Lord, may our will be pure and our aim be true. Amen"

Offline GobbleNut

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Re: Hen behavior and flock hierarchy
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2023, 09:40:49 AM »
Just noticed this thread,...not sure how it got so far down the list without any responses to your question,...but better late than never, I suppose, and not being one to miss an opportunity to throw out a random, unauthoritative opinion, here's my guess:   :D

I would speculate that the hen that came to investigate was an adult that probably thought you were a member of the flock that had wandered off,...OR she may have thought you were an "outsider" that she needed to talk to about who was the boss and the conditions under which you might join up with her band.

Probably one or the other of the above,...and probably some dominance issues to be sorted out somewhere in your association.  These kinds of interactions with single hens leaving a flock to investigate unknown interlopers in not uncommon from what I have experienced.   :icon_thumright: