This spring has been rainy and cool. That’s a good thing for many plants, which cannot put up with scorching heat of the summer.
However, it is very bad thing for wild turkeys.
I live in the heart of Eastern wild turkey’s range. They are big game birds, more than capable of long flights. I often see them flying across the river, landing on the other side as like black kettles falling from the sky. During high summer, I see hens moving in groups of two or three as they are trailed by a dozen or so little poults. This scene, however, may not be a reality this year.
The hen turkeys lay their eggs by mid-April. She sits on the nest for 28 days. Her poults then hatch, and they are highly susceptible to hypothermia. If they become cold, they die.
And that’s why a cool, rainy spring won’t be very good for these poults.
