This Turkey Tuesday is about getting off the ground. Hopefully, you’re seeing older poults in your area that have survived those first few weeks of life – research has shown that the first 2-3 weeks are the most challenging for poults to survive. But at this age, poults will start roosting at night above the ground where it is much safer – in fact, ongoing work by Patrick Wightman is showing that if a hen is going to be killed during the brooding period, 81% of the time she’s going to be killed at night while roosted on the ground. But there are other reasons that poult survival starts to increase once they get past those first few weeks. One, their diet starts to shift from insects to also include plant material such as seeds – this allows poults to more effectively and efficiently gain energy. Two, as their diet becomes more diverse, so does their ability to exploit different vegetative communities – in other words, as they get bigger they can feed on different food items and do so in more complex habitats than when they were very small. Three, bigger poults can expand their home ranges, and research has shown that these ranges will slowly increase as the weeks go by which expands options for identifying high quality places to feed that are also safe. But, one thing that doesn’t change as poults age is the need for them to be able to access early successional vegetation that is relatively low growing, and areas within their ranges where temperatures are cooler during the heat of midday. Research has shown clearly that temperature matters, which is one reason that older broods will often select hardwood dominated areas near water to beat the heat. The take home is, if you’re seeing older poults there is a good chance these birds will survive to join fall flocks as their abilities and behaviors become more flexible.
Pic by Jeffrey Sidle
