How many chicks in an average brood of wild turkeys? I was driving out in the country today and a family scurried across the road. I stopped to let them pass and was surprised at how many chicks were running after the hen, maybe 8 or 9.
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debodun
ANSWERS: 3
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A wild turkey can incubate as many as 18 eggs but unfortunately, survival rates are not that high. Moisture and predators have a lot to do with how many survive. The largest group I have ever seen has been 11 or 12.
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Yesterday I saw the same thing. but the mother had 6 ot 7 in her flock.
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Clutch sizes are larger in the west than in the eastern states. The average overall is about 6-8. But in the west it is closer to 8-12 and sometimes up to 15-18. We would have huge flocks of turkeys roaming our hills and often hens would gather together when they would start to lose their chicks from predation or deaths. So where we started out with hens with 12 poults, we'd soon see 3-4 hens with a group of chicks of different ages.
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