No poults

[JeffC]

Have seen 6 different hens in 2 separate areas and no poults. Have a friend 1 mile from my house, probably same birds from my "backyard flock", and he has 1 hen with a few poults. Birds around here are being slowly pushed out due to development. Picture of hen from yesterday, saw 3 walking around eating. Starting to see some bambies.   

[GobbleNut]

Nice pictures, Jeff.
Hopefully, there is a reason for the lack of poults you have seen besides nesting failure. Could be those hens are still sitting on eggs...or their poults are being reclusive. Regardless, even if they may have lost a clutch, they still have time to renest this early in the season.

Over the years, I have reached the point where I never make assumptions about nesting success and poult survival based on anything other than the presence of jakes later on in the year and in the following spring. Seeing jakes in the population is a sure sign of nesting success.  It is when I am not seeing any jakes that I start getting concerned...especially if that is happening multiple years in a row.

The reason I use jakes as the barometer is because they are easy to identify, whereas young-of-the-year jennies, once they have reached "full size", are difficult to identify from older, adult hens.

[TrackeySauresRex]

I definitely don't like seeing that. Hopefully they were close by taking cover. I saw 2 Bambi's a couple of weeks back not more than an hour old.

[Shiloh]

Central MS and we have hens still nesting and I'm getting pics of gobblers still strutting with hens.  Good chance they will nest 2 or 3 times.  I wouldn't be overly concerned yet. 

[Greg Massey]

I agree with GobbleNut, I will have a better idea of what is happening in our area early mid-Oct / Dec with the poults and what i'm seeing as far as numbers.

[KYTurkey07]

Here in KY we had a very wet late spring/early summer. I've always heard that was bad for nesting success. But I've recently heard about a study that said rainy weather late spring/early summer has no impact on nesting success. I'm hoping the study was correct, time will tell.

[macmcdaniel]

Central MS and we have hens still nesting and I'm getting pics of gobblers still strutting with hens.  Good chance they will nest 2 or 3 times.  I wouldn't be overly concerned yet.

In south MS, Poults appeared 2 weeks ago.

[King Cobra]

I'm out quite a bit and have not seen any poults yet. I have seen individual hens and one group of three all with no poults. The weather seems to be pretty good, no cold wet spells or anything else that would hinder nesting activities. I did see a single coyote yesterday but that just goes with the territory. I believe the hens do a pretty good job keeping their young out of harm's way until they are a little more mobile. Usually, mid-July into August is when I start seeing or hearing about poult sightings.

Last year we had a cold wet spring and when people started seeing them it was a hen with maybe one or two.   

[Tom007]

In May, I saw a hen with it looked like 10 poults. Encouraging sight, but no way of knowing how many made it through that 2-3 week dangerous period. The last 2 winters in my area have been mild, no snow to speak of. Hopefully we get another mild winter, and the birds get a chance to rebound.....

[Tail Feathers]

We have had an all time record amount of rainfall for the first five months of the year.  The grass is so high a hen would have to be in the road to see her.  I hope we had a good hatch, but so much rain can't be good for poult survival.  But I wouldn't expect to see many turkeys now with the open areas and pipelines having such tall weeds and grass.

[backforty]

Seeing a lot of poults here in central Missouri. It's a nice change.

[Shiloh]

In the last 2 weeks we have seen poults that can fly and about the size of a banty chicken, poults smaller than a small quail, a nest with 12 eggs and gobblers still strutting with hens.  Hopefully we won't have any tropical depression type weather. 

[KYTurkey07]

In the last 2 weeks we have seen poults that can fly and about the size of a banty chicken, poults smaller than a small quail, a nest with 12 eggs and gobblers still strutting with hens.  Hopefully we won't have any tropical depression type weather.

That's encouraging

[WiLL B]

This week I've seen a hen with one Pheasant sized. And a hen with at least 10 quail sized. Some hens are still setting, fingers crossed. In south MS.

[Paulmyr]

I wouldn't be too concerned yet about not seeing hens with polts. It means she's doing her job. Good brooding cover( not grass) keeps the polts out of sight from you and predators until they get bigger.

Kind Cobra's statement about starting to see polts july/August seems to holds true in Mn as well.

A buddy from Ga just seen a hen with 10 small polts earlier this week near his house.