This Turkey Tuesday is about safety in numbers – in this case, the formation of brood flocks during summer. When hens hatch their nest, they quickly move away from the nest site and spend the next few weeks alone with their poults. This time allows poults to develop social bonds without having to deal with other birds, whether it be other poults or hens. But then hens change strategies – once broods reach several weeks of age it’s common to see brooding hens form flocks with other hens that have poults, termed amalgamation. Amalgamating broods into flocks offers brooding hens and poults some distinctive advantages- one there’s safety in numbers. Although poults are not yet fully experienced in the art of detecting and avoiding danger, the hens certainly are – having more eyes scanning for danger helps and hens with broods are constantly alert. Two, sometimes brooding hens will be killed, but if her poults are part of a brood flock, her poults will typically remain with the flock which offers them better survival. Three, these brood flocks will become part of fall and winter flocks, so they’ll start establishing dominance hierarchies within the brood flocks we’re seeing now, and these hierarchies will transcend into fall – this offers them an advantage socially. Interestingly, sometimes hens that don’t hatch a nest and have no poults will still join brood flocks but the reasons for this behavior are not well understood. The take home is the formation of brood flocks is a behavior that offers a number of benefits to poults as they transition from youngsters to juveniles.
Pic by Roxanne Beri
