EP:415 | Preseason Turkeys with Dr. Gulsby and Dr. Lashley

On this episode, we’re talking turkeys with Dr. Will Gulsby and Dr. Marcus Lashley. They break down recent university research, answer your questions, and share insights just in time for turkey season. Nothing better than talking about our favorite bird with the season on the horizon.

Listen, Learn and Enjoy.  

Transcript

Speaker 4 0:00

I'm Jeff Foxworthy and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, everybody, you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Office Yoke Land Enhancement Studios as they discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices. News, and of course, honey. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm gonna tell you, I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

Speaker 0:26

We're live in three, two, one.

Speaker 5 0:29

All right, welcome. Here we are. Lanny, we're just one step closer to I know the sun's been shining out there.

Speaker 7 0:36

Hmm.

Speaker 5 0:36

Temperature, it's finally we're not an icebox now for it. Finally warm now.

Speaker 8 0:41

There's always something to be depressed about, but then the worst thing is right when the fish are gonna start biting and you could slip out and hear one goblin morning. We've got to go on.

Speaker 6 0:50

I guarantee you. We gotta go out of town on business. I'm guaranteed, I guarantee you some gobble this morning. Oh no doubt about it. And to me, and y'all probably agree with this, but turkey season starts like the day deer season is over.

Speaker 8 1:04

Well, it starts the day you can go out and listen to one. Okay. That's true.

Speaker 7 1:07

Yeah. But we don't need to forget about our deer. We talked about that this morning. February is a gamekeeping month. No, it's lots of stuff to do out there. Dudley, I know you've been busy. Bobby, you've been busy. No, you've been busy.

Speaker 8 1:19

I but not not burning it up like I like to, literally.

Speaker 5 1:22

I'll tell you what, and let's go ahead and get our guest introduction. So we've got Dr. Marcus Lashley from Florida down there. Straight out of Sumter County. And then we've got Dr. Will Goolsby from Auburn. All right. And they are look they they look look how excited Will is. They got both got turkeys behind them.

Speaker 3 1:42

Marcus always gives me a hard time when we open on our show.

Speaker 8 1:46

Turkeys on the brand. Will help balance out because our opinion of Auburn's just coming from being around Bobby. It needs to counterbalance. Will you you help their image a ton?

Speaker 3 1:58

I better keep working out because that's a load to toe.

Speaker 5 2:02

No doubt. So circling back to what Lanny said, though, February being a gamekeeper month, there's one thing a lot of folks overlook that needs to be done in February. What is this? And I want to I want to get these guys' opinions too. It's a great time to scout for next year because you can see deer trails are so obvious. Yeah. And in areas that you didn't really go during deer season because you were scared you're gonna bump a deer out or something, you can go in there now and look and see what's going on. Yeah, we're doing that while we're gamekeeping.

Speaker 6 2:29

Yeah, right?

Speaker 3 2:31

I did that yesterday with my kids uh total and squirrel guns.

Speaker 5 2:34

There we go. Picking up some sheds too.

Speaker 3 2:36

That's my number one goal thing to do.

Speaker 5 2:38

Yeah. Did y'all find any sheds?

Speaker 3 2:40

We did. We found one uh one side of a nice eight point that I hunted unsuccessfully this year. Oh well, you know he's still around then. Yeah, yeah, that's right. He'll be a good one next year. Yeah, I think he was four, so if he's five next year, you know, hopefully he'll make a little jump.

Speaker 8 2:55

Hey Marcus, just like a just like the typical Auburn fan. Just wait on next, just wait on next year. That's right. We've been that way Mississippi study. Yeah, I was about to I was about to say I'd make that joke about MSU sometimes, though, in good faith.

Marcus Lashley 3:10

Well, Will, just to ground you in reality though, today uh that deer still probably has a another 24 hours he's gonna survive. Yeah, a little bit more than that. Yeah, he does.

Speaker 3 3:20

We don't go out until tomorrow. That's right. And uh hunted a good bit um two weekends ago as well, and my wife actually saw uh what looked like a pretty big body mature deer that had already shed both sides. Oh wow. So a little early.

Speaker 5 3:33

Yeah.

Speaker 8 3:34

It's crazy how they do that because, like we talked about before, I found sheds late January and I've seen them full rack in Alabama in 1st of April. That's right. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 5 3:45

So weird. Very odd. Well, look, we're gonna talk turkeys today. Imagine that. Look, when you think about it, I was mentioning to Richie earlier that you know you set that alarm clock a little bit earlier. There we go. You get up and you stop at the gas station, you go to the city. You know, when you're looking out at the sky and stars are everywhere, you drive to your hunting spot and you get out and you ease the door shut. Thank you, Richie. And you walk down there and you're sitting there, you got your vest on and you're listening. Maybe wait on an owl or a crow or something. But listen, just that anticipation of hearing that first gobble, and then one gobbles, and maybe he's in the same spot you thought he would be in, and you've got that intel immediately that you can take away and wait till the seat that first morning of the season. Oh, if it's not season. No, it's not until you're just you're just trying to find out where they are. Okay, it's such a great time to be out in the woods.

Speaker 8 4:42

You never made it as a salesman. I don't know what the deal is. I'm sold.

Speaker 5 4:48

Do y'all go out and listen for them to gobble before the season, or do you just roll up your sleeves and go that first morning?

Speaker 9 4:53

Heck yeah.

Speaker 1 4:53

No, I go listen. I always go listen. I can't stand it. Oh man, I have to. And I I'll tell you guys now that uh we have some turkeys right down the road, and I know right where they're gonna be every time I go over there. They are gobbling. Every time you go out there, they get really excited. And uh that is sending that same jolt of adrenaline up my spine.

Speaker 6 5:15

Are you talking about your buddies at school? Those turkeys?

Speaker 1 5:18

Yeah. Okay, oh yeah, I forgot. They're all jakes, but some of them have a full gobble now. They're super jakes.

Speaker 5 5:26

Tell us what's going on with your study right now, Marcus. Let's start there.

Speaker 1 5:30

Yeah, well uh well, we could start there. That that study has just been an eye-opening thing after one after another after another. Uh right now they are we are starting to move them into individual places where we have a a male with two females, and what we're doing is uh, you know, they're they're kind of getting hot now. Some of them are from South Florida, so they they start getting pretty rowdy in mid-February, and we are going to look at mate selection and try to figure out what is it about the males that females find attractive. So um that same process is going to yield, you know, eggs later in the year, and we'll use that to do a second iteration of the the POLT imprinting that we did where we have the the habitat treatments. And uh, you know, right now we are trying to work out the mate selection part of it. So I I think it's I mean it's just been a phenomenal study from day one, but it gives you so many opportunities like that, and we're trying to get as much out of it as we can, obviously. So uh that's that's what's on the horizon right now. So we we moved them just a few days ago, and next week we're expecting uh the mate selection trials to start.

Speaker 7 6:55

Well, you think that'll be more physiologically based or or behavior based as far as what attracts them most?

Speaker 1 7:05

Well, uh based on some of the previous work that's been done, uh I sus I suspect there will be some tr physical traits that predict it, particularly snood length and skull cap width were the two things that that uh females selected in previous studies. And I I think that's probably what we will find, but we have some added layers in it. Uh one of the things that I'm very interested in is we the way that we're cycling males through, none of them are related to each other, but some grew up together, so they don't know that they're not related. So we have this added layer where we'll the f the hen will know some of the males and won't know some of the males because they've never met. None of them are related, but she she'll know that she knows one, presumably, and not the other. And I'm I'm really curious to see how strong that instinct is to avoid you know, males that she knows. So that's what she grew up with. That's gonna be really interesting to see.

Speaker 8 8:05

You know, the deer thing, you know, very obvious. I think it at a year and a half, if he's around his mom, they I don't know if if it's her that runs him off, or yeah, I think she runs him off. But I remember saying they will go a long ways away to get away from their mom at a year and a half.

Speaker 5 8:22

Is it is it a year and a half or is it half a year?

Speaker 8 8:24

I think it's a year and a half. He's not a he's not in danger of breeding anybody at a half a year. I'm pretty sure it's a year and a half, but they they might be more aware of that.

Speaker 7 8:35

There was kind of there was a study on deer.

Speaker 8 8:38

Definitely it is definitely you know a fact that they do that though.

Speaker 5 8:42

What is that age, Will?

Speaker 3 8:44

Usually around a year and a half, yeah, as they they get that first set of antlers.

Speaker 5 8:48

Okay, well, actually, I bow to your your knowledge.

Speaker 8 8:50

I wouldn't I wouldn't say I'm hell to sure if I wasn't and one of the things uh they were they were also talking about uh when I it's been years ago, that um you know shooting the older does might help you keep those you know those same bucks on your place. Ah one that hadn't of course you don't know at a year and a half it's gonna be a superstar or not to do that, but that's one one of the rationale for shooting the older does. It lessens. So those bucks will stay there, yeah.

Speaker 7 9:19

Yeah, makes sense.

Speaker 5 9:20

Marcus, I got a question. Did y'all experience the bumper acorn crop this year around those turkeys? And how did that did they could they did they have access to acorns or did y'all supplement them with acorns?

Speaker 1 9:33

Well, that's a good question. The first part of your question, yes, we had a bumper crop everywhere that I have been in the south has been a bumper crop. And I'm I'm really hopeful uh that we're gonna have a good year with turkeys because the females should be coming into the breeding season in good condition. So I'm hopeful, you know, if we can get the the weather to align and and uh participate, you know, maybe we'll have a big crop of of uh turkeys this year. Uh the other part of your question, they do not have direct access, but we did do some experiments this year, which we're still working through the data because we videoed all of it, but we provided them access to about twenty-five species of oaks and also five uh species of chestnuts, including the American chestnut. And uh we were looking at diet selection and it was really cool because the turkeys had never seen an acorn before, they didn't know what it was. And uh we started there and then you know basically repeated the experiment over and over as they gained experience with it to see how how their selection changes as they develop a knowledge of what the food is. So it's gonna be really interesting. We're not quite ready with the results, but they had a bumper crop, I guess, so to speak, because we were feeding them acorns.

Speaker 8 10:57

I can't it it's I mean, I talked to I've had a lengthy back and forth with Mark Dreary this weekend. He was talking about different stuff and family things, and then but I said something, do y'all have that crazy mast up there? Oh yeah. So I mean, I don't know how far how widespread that is. Dudley's talking to more people than you guys probably, but I don't know of anywhere that doesn't reply, yeah, it was crazy. I wonder why. And then you know, what's the explanation?

Speaker 5 11:22

I don't know. Well, so Will, let me ask you this. So, could we with deer coming out of the winter in the rut and probably with with all these agrands be in great shape? Could button bucks coming out of this, could they turn would they have a head start on that first set of antlers? Would that give them a head start in life and growing antlers? Or is it the offspring that'll be dropped this summer that could potentially turn into a shooting superstar?

Speaker 3 11:52

That's a good question. I don't, you know, maybe Marcus can speak to it, but I'm I haven't really seen any data that um directly addresses that. Um I know let's see. There was some work in the Southern Appalachians back, I want to say in the early 90s, that did find a correlation between beam length and the previous year's acorn crop. Um, but I don't know if that was age class specific. So I I mean that's even better, really, right? It's it was across age classes that they found an effect.

Speaker 7 12:26

Yeah.

unknown 12:26

Yeah.

Speaker 7 12:27

Well you gotta think, just like uh Marcus was saying, hens are healthier. Hopefully the doughs are gonna be healthy. I've noticed not as much pressure on the food plots. I don't know if y'all have.

Speaker 3 12:36

I noticed in the doughs that I cleaned this year, it seemed like they had a much thicker layer of rump fat than usual.

Speaker 1 12:41

Yeah. Yeah, I know the one I harvested this year was just unbelievable. In fact, uh uh I may have even made a post about it. The kidney fat index was the highest I had ever observed.

Speaker 8 12:54

Wow. That's the thing right there, too. Yeah. So um if I remember right, some of the earlier research, and I can't uh my two I would always have had listened to or read something on or heard would have been either, you know, y'all took your two universities with either Dr. Speak at Auburn or um George Hirsch at State, but it was it was indicating that a bumper acorn crop, you had not only did the hens have a better nest season that year, which is obvious, but the turkeys gobbled better and you know the hunting was better because of it too, as opposed to a really lean year. So I don't know what the data was behind that, but it certainly makes sense.

Speaker 1 13:34

That was uh in one of Hurst's papers. I don't know if Speak ever talked talked about that. Maybe you'll know Will, but I remember distinctly in one of the the projects that Hearst was working on, uh they mentioned that gobbling was they thought gobbling was better, but there's been a few studies with with hen condition showing that those are the better condition leads to a higher nest initiation rate. It was even higher clutch size, wasn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 3 14:05

And earlier nesting too. Yeah, I think it was up to two weeks, yeah.

Speaker 8 14:09

You know, and this has been a long time ago, they would say because everybody, you know, between deer and turkey season, even you know, the best intention people like to feed their turkeys and stuff like that, and they would always say, okay, okay, if you just insist on doing that, include some soybeans in with that, because that little boost in protein this time of year will make a difference. I remember them telling us that. If you think you're gonna do that, whatever you do, just don't throw some corn or something out. Be sure you get them some some good protein.

Speaker 7 14:35

So you know in theory, if it could make them nest earlier, then I mean it should definitely affect goblin activity, you would think. I mean, I know I'm just being kind of throwing a dart at it right now, but that's what I do.

Speaker 1 14:47

Yeah, and I think that's a logically reasonable. You know, it for them to gobble is is somewhat of a an energy demand, right? It's true. They also don't have to spend as much time foraging. Maybe they spend more time gobbling, but if they're in better condition, if they have to be feel better, probably. Yeah, I feel better when I'm full.

Speaker 8 15:07

So yeah. I try to go to sleep though, as I'm getting old.

Speaker 5 15:11

So, guys, what do y'all hear most people uh what what could mo the average guy do on their property in the spring of the year that could improve the overall hunting long term, not just necessarily short term, but what if you could had to pick one or two things, what would you guys start with?

Speaker 3 15:31

So we're have I mean, I don't want to speak for Marcus, but I was gonna say we're habitat guys, so that's exactly where my mind goes first and foremost. And you know, this time of year, you know, just like we were talking before we hit record, you know, it's time to burn um and focus on that that reproductive habitat, you know, that I shouldn't say reproductive habitat, Craig Harper will call me out on that, but that that brooding cover and that nesting cover, um, you know, and thinking about making more turkeys so that we can have more turkeys in the future. Um, and I also think a lot about um, you know, we've got several species of uh cool season grasses, pasture grasses, um, that'll be emerging this time of year. One in particular that, you know, infests a lot of our food plots is ryegrass. And I think about, you know, we're getting close to the time of year to start controlling that to make sure that that brooding cover in particular does not get so dense that the polts can't move through it, easily access food, escape from predators easily, and and probably most importantly allow those other plants to grow that are producing seed and insects for turkeys.

Speaker 8 16:34

So, yeah, Dr. Um Harper's probably is the master at that question. But I was just been I've been going through my mind, I want to get y'all's opinion on it because y'all could help me. We've got a lot of invasive grasses, like even now, and the worst one is the old native ryegrass and stuff, but there's others. And I'm just dying to go smoke them like right now, just release the clovers and stuff. But and I'm thinking, but with this sudden warm-up, shouldn't I wait just a little bit longer, want a few more emerge? What would you be doing as far as that, you know, when you want to hit those grasses? Would you do it right now? Would you think you would wait for a little more emergence? And I'm talking, you know, North Mississippi, central Alabama.

Speaker 1 17:15

Well, I uh you know, I think the main thing is that you want uh enough of the grass exposed that it can catch the chemical, but you also need to be careful not to let the plant go to seed. Right. So you're kind of in that starting in that window now and you got a little more time with with ryegrass, so it wouldn't hurt you to wait a little longer, but in in most cases when you have a ryegrass problem, I'm I'm focused on that. If you take care of that problem, you're addressing most of your problem. Now, if you have crab grasses, which would be a warm season plant, you might want to be a little bit later to let that emerge or bahia grass or Bermuda grass.

Speaker 3 17:59

Right, yeah. I'd wait a little bit longer on those, maybe even into April.

Speaker 8 18:03

Yes, I mean from listening to you, I would one thing about it a little bit earlier is that the the grasses are smaller, as long as it's kind of warm enough that they're growing and absorbing it. But um the good answer if you have a bad grass invasion uh invasion of both, then you probably need to plan on spraying it twice. Yeah, sounds like clethanum, yeah.

Speaker 1 18:24

I agree with that. One one application is probably not gonna do it.

Speaker 3 18:27

Yeah, I like clethanum for the rye grass. Um, if you get into you know things like bahia grass, um, you're gonna have to switch chemicals and and wait a little bit later in the year. I typically prefer escort, you know, met sulfur on methyl uh for bahia grass, and then I'll switch over to um a Mazapir Arsenal AC for Bermuda grass.

Speaker 6 18:48

That Bermuda's tough.

Speaker 3 18:49

Okay, yeah. It is.

Speaker 1 18:50

Yeah, you're gonna have to go after it a few times.

Speaker 3 18:54

Yeah, and that that is a question that we get a lot when we provide that kind of advice. Um, you know, a lot of landowners and managers, and rightfully so, are concerned that applications of those chemicals will also reduce the coverage of desirable plants for turkeys and other wildlife. And while that is true, um, you know, Marcus and I have tons of examples of places where we have implemented that strategy. And, you know, it's it's a short-term sacrifice for a very major long-term gain in terms of the native plant diversity that can yield in that area once it's been properly controlled. Um, you know, I think the other thing that I would throw out there too is if uh folks are thinking about implementing those treatments, be aware that it's just not a one-time broadcast application, but you're gonna miss some spots and have to come back and spot spray over time.

Speaker 1 19:41

Right. Yeah, no, I mean ultimately your goal is to get the plant community to maintenance. That's right. You you know, we're not trying to do a broadcast herbicide application every time we turn around. Right. You're trying to address the problem up front so that you're just in maintenance mode then. And then when a problem pops up, you might spot spray to take care of it. Uh, but you're you're not really trying to manage long-term where you're gonna need this repeated broadcast herbicide application. You're trying to get rid of the problem so that you don't have to do that in the future.

Speaker 8 20:14

Yeah, and also now uh you y'all sold me on being sure to be prepared for two. Um feels like if you go ahead and pretty soon you smoke it, especially the rye grass and all, you're if you've got you know clover there and things you want, it it'll have a better chance of spreading out and kind of choking out some of the stuff that comes around like April and May. Yeah, you might not have quite as big a problem too.

Speaker 6 20:37

Yeah, that's right. There's all I think there's some, you know, there's some pre-emergence you could use in the fall too, and and possibly save yourself some time in the spring to burn more.

Speaker 1 20:47

Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 6 20:48

I've I have I don't have a lot of experience with that, but I've heard Dr. the good Dr. Craig talk about it a good bit. And I I know I know he's got some prescriptions in his book for that.

Speaker 7 21:00

So you you'd put that on in the fall when you're planting?

Speaker 6 21:04

Yes, you can. With you know, it depends on what you plant. Yeah, you know, but yeah.

Speaker 3 21:09

Yeah, it's just like putting pre-emergent on your lawn for crabgrass.

Speaker 1 21:13

So Will, what that can save you a lot of problems, also, like you're saying, Dudley. A lot of headache can be avoided with the the appropriate pre-emergent services.

Speaker 6 21:25

Yep. I think pursuit, uh, the active ingredient in pursuit is one of them. They I forgot the name. They've got a couple of years.

Speaker 8 21:34

They've got a good one for the rye grass. I can't remember the name I may think of colon. Yeah, but there's another new one. There's a newer one in it in it, and it doesn't ding up your your wheat or oats at all. And not the clover either, but it's a pre emerge. Best is a pre emerge. I'll think of it in a minute.

Speaker 5 21:49

That's helpful.

Speaker 8 21:50

Are you talking about axial? Axial, that's right, because they're good friends. Yep.

Speaker 5 21:54

At nutrient.

Speaker 8 21:54

At nutrient, yeah.

Speaker 5 21:56

How about that? So, hey, Will, what about what have you been? Doing since last time we talked. What studies, what have you learned? What could you tell us that would we'd be like, aha, that's that you've learned we need some aha moments.

Speaker 3 22:09

Yeah. Well, you know, Marcus and I kind of chatted about that a little bit before coming on today. And I think, you know, one of the things that we were most excited to talk about was a study that we actually got to work on together. Um, and we were able to make use uh not necessarily of new data that we'd gone out and collected, but actually to compile a lot of results uh from previous turkey studies from the literature to answer some important questions. Um and what we were specifically focused on was adult hen survival and kind of what prompted this. Um, and Marcus, feel free to jump in and correct me if I missed something here, but um in several of these ongoing studies you know that have been done across the Southeast and even beyond recently, we've we've really started to notice that hen survival rates are kind of scarily low and surprisingly low. Um and then even in some years on some study sites, none of the hens are making it through. And so we wondered, you know, what role is this potentially playing in some of the observed population declines that we've been seeing in different areas.

Speaker 1 23:15

Yeah, I think you hit it right on, Will. And I'll just point out for folks that that aren't familiar, when you actually look at what is driving a population of turkeys, most people think about nesting and then maybe brooding next, but really the hen survival is the most important thing in the population. That's what is driving whether or not it's growing or stable or declining. Uh, in every study, you know, back all the way into the 80s, when we have looked to see what influences the population's trajectory most, it is hen survival. And like Will said, you know, uh the some of the recent studies, the hen survival so low, it made me kind of raise my eyebrows. And I was you know thinking about that. And same with with other folks, we got together a bunch of scientists, Will and I, and Coulter Chitwood, I think you guys talked to him some, and uh and his spouse. Uh, we got together and started talking about that, and then decided we would scour the literature and see how is it you know what what information do we have out there? We ended up collecting every study that's ever been published on turkeys that reported a hen survival all the way back to 1978. That was the first one. And uh what we found when we put all that together and then modeled uh that over time is that somewhere in the the mid-2000s, hen survival kind of fell off a cliff. So it was stable. And just for you guys, we've kind of ignored it for about 30 years because that metric has been stable.

Speaker 3 25:02

Yeah, it was always kind of high and stable, so researchers were like, yeah, we know this is important, but it's always kind of high and stable. So let's move on to other things that we can actually you know potentially manipulate.

Speaker 6 25:13

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. My anecdotal evidence, and uh I bet y'all will agree with me, is it just seems like you'd be hunting and call up random hens that just show up. Or, you know, and to me that doesn't happen nearly as much as it used to. You know, you go and set up on a tree and call, and you know, maybe one or two hens just show up and walk by, you know. Yeah. I I don't have that happen near as often as I used to.

Speaker 3 25:42

Yeah. And I mean you think about the huge hen flocks too that you don't see anymore.

Speaker 7 25:46

Just about to bring that up, looking specifically. Do you used to see we used to see, yep, these turkeys?

Speaker 8 25:51

These turkeys were as I've talked about before, they were trapped over on the Mississippi River that we my dad released got released here, and uh man, it would be nothing to see a herd of forty, fifty fifty-five, you know, hens. In the winter time. In the winter time. Yeah. Yeah, we're not. Maybe a few mixed jakes with them that they had raised, but I mean no long beards at all, just all I remember we let them trap um and it was about maybe six or eight years from the time they released them, and the population just exploded. But the they shot the cannon and it was like they said sixty-something hens in the field when they shot it.

Speaker 6 26:28

Yeah. I can't remember the last time I've seen a big group like that around here.

Speaker 7 26:32

I can remember where I was, but I can't remember when it was. I was on your place.

Speaker 8 26:36

Yeah, I mean, between between trail cameras and just me around here and and then people that have been hunting that we let go and stuff. I mean, you know, eight or ten, twelve, you know, is if you got a pretty good size five. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 26:50

Yeah, and Toxie, I think you said something that, you know, you hit the nail on the head right there, where you talked about the population exploded. When you have that high carryover year over year, that's exactly what happens. And in wildlife biology, we're good, we call it exponential growth. Yeah. It's exactly what you see in a deer population where you have low dough harvest, and though, you know, most of those doughs make it through year after year if they don't get hit by a car or something else. Um, and the population just grows exponentially, just like you know, we talk about investing strategies, right? Um, but when that survival is low and you're not carrying as many birds year over year, and also with turkeys being so cyclical in terms of having good years of reproduction and bad years of reproduction that can oftentimes be you know weather dependent, um, you really need to make sure you're carrying enough hens so you can take advantage of the good times and make it through the lean ones.

Speaker 1 27:40

Yeah, dead hens don't have nests or poles.

Speaker 3 27:44

Well, that's an easier way to say it, Marcus.

Speaker 1 27:46

So, well, and I'd I'll add to that, you know, when going back to that study, uh when you know what we didn't stop at, oh, hen survival has declined. Well, we're you know, we that's kind of telling us the what. This is the problem right here. Right? And we went farther, we took the contemporary, you know, recent hen survival estimates over about the last decade or so and compared, we put them into a model and and looked at what the population trajectory would be, and then compared that to historical. And even when we take high nesting, so we you know, we know what high what the high end of what we could expect for nesting success is and pulp rearing success, the other things that are going into that population's trajectory. Even when those things are at the high end of what we've observed, and you know, what's the potential for a turkey population, even when they're at that high end with nesting success and pulp rearing success, it it doesn't overcome the sin survival problem. So that tells us we've got to figure out what is causing that decline and and correct that if we want to get past this.

Speaker 8 29:01

I've actually in the last uh and I've gotten into the woods less than ever in my life this this winter. I went for, you know, just just kind of reminiscing, you know, dad's life and all the last week and a half. I've been just getting on a uh ATV or foil or something, just kind of riding some of the stuff we'd done and uh doing that. So I've got out by my point, I've gotten out some, and I found three carcasses. I've never seen that many, you know. And it just looked like to me they were like one-year-old hens by the size of them. They'd been eaten. Uh one, there wasn't a lot of feathers right there because it but it could have gotten carried over there from where they killed it. But the other ones were lots and lots of feathers, so I know what got them. But I've never seen before. I know that's just one part of the puzzle. And you know, it's not a all the bobcats and coats or whatever, but definitely have seen more myself in the last say four years. Yeah. Where I find, and by the look of the feathers, other than a trapper that found one for sure that was a Jake, they're almost always hens. And I just wonder if they're more vulnerable to a bobcat or even an eagle or something, you know, or a coyote or you know, whatever can catch them. Yeah.

Speaker 3 30:18

Yeah, they absolutely are.

Speaker 1 30:20

Yeah, especially, you know, if we fast forward a little bit, when you know, if you look at when hens die, it's during the reproduction season, particularly when she's sitting on a nest through the night during incubation. The majority of hen mortality, and this is going across all these studies, including the stuff that we have ongoing now, that's when the hens die, is particularly when they're sitting on a nest through the night in incubation, or when the hen has a brood with her that can't fly yet.

Speaker 3 30:51

Yeah, I mean, there's a reason they like to roost in trees whenever they can, it makes them a lot safer.

Speaker 1 30:55

Yeah. So we we've uh I guess started down several paths trying to figure out this problem, and we have a bunch of ongoing work. And uh I think you know I I'll back up for a minute. Hen when hens die, it's usually because of predation. But that doesn't necessarily mean that predators are the problem that could be the problem, but I know folks roll their eyes when I say that, but the same outcome is happens whenever it's a habitat problem. The reason there's a habitat problem is she gets eaten, right? Right? So, like that's what the outcome of poor habitat is, also. And uh we have work ongoing right now that suggests the quality of nesting and brooding cover is really influencing how likely she is to get predated during that process. Yeah. So, you know, that's a a really important aspect of it. And more recently, we've also started a uh project that will be long-term looking at the predator aspect of that as well. Like, you know, is uh implementing predator removal a practical way to to address the situation? So we have work going on on both of them, and so far we have some preliminary evidence to suggest habitat is playing a big role in that, and that definitely has changed over the same time frame.

Speaker 3 32:23

Yeah, and I'll be interesting. And I'll add to that, Marcus, that uh you know, we we've known for a long time that predators are the number one cause of mortality for turkeys at pretty much all life stages. Um, however, the question that we've had much more difficulty answering is what can we effectively do about that as managers? Um, you know, how effectively can we reduce uh predator populations through trapping? What you know size area do we need to trap to do that? What does that program need to look like? And how can we do it with habitat and what is the relative contribution of those two different factors? So there's a lot that goes into this, and that's really what we're trying to solve right now is is the answer to where is our time best spent to address this issue.

Speaker 7 33:06

Interesting. I know because um we've learned that I mean you have to stay on the predators, and as soon as you quit, they're coming back.

Speaker 8 33:12

Well, it feels like uh almost always we've we visited these questions, it's our life's love. Yeah, there's never one answer. Rarely is there one answer anyway, and I would say from listening to y'all, at least uh to make the the trapping work or all the hard work, much harder a lot of times, of getting your you know managing habitat properly. Right. If you really want the magic, have a chance at the magic, you've got to do both, you know. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 33:39

Well, I I think you're hitting it on the head, Toxy, that the best chance is is that they will be done together, right? And I'll I'll just you know, kind of backing up to the POLT work for a minute. With without high quality nesting cover, if you did really effectively control predators, you might increase the hen survival. She can survive without having very good cover. But the polts cannot. A polt that is three or four or five days old, if it does not have the right type of vegetation of community available, it will die to exposure or to insect limitation. That the predators are not even relevant. Like you you can get rid of all of them, and that's still going to be a bottleneck because of those other things that limit pults when predators aren't there. So I think that's uh an important point for you to think about. Doing them in tandem can potentially be very effective, but not having the appropriate habitat is uh you know going to be detrimental regardless of predators.

Speaker 8 34:52

So what I mean, then one of the it pops in my mind one of the things we love to do that can possibly affect the insects is burning. And is it like you know, if you did a late season burn from last year, or did you do one in the middle of the winter, or like right now is the best time I usually have in the next couple of weeks? Or even, you know, as you said, uh don't be scared too in the season. Is there a certain thing? I mean, it seems like the early tender green stuff that grows back from burning might be the best stuff to create more insects. Yeah. But then maybe you should burn a few patches on into the season just a little bit. Be brave enough to maybe if you're scared of a nest, just do it pri just prior to when they nest. But I comment on that. Was there anything you could do? I know plant communities have a lot to do with it, but as far as timing, the the easiest thing for average bubbles like us to do is burn, you know.

Speaker 3 35:47

Yeah. Well, go ahead, Marcus. I'm sorry, I got a torch. Torage plan. We both think and talk about this a lot, but I would say um, Toxie, to to start out more broadly, and then we can get more specific with my answer to your question is uh focusing on native Forbes. Native Forbes are gonna be, you know, some of your best insect attractors and producers, but many of those species also have the added benefit of being prolific seed producers, you know, for adults, and then the pults as they start to change over to more of a uh grain-based diet. And then um I would all you know, those forbes also are high crude protein summer deer forage as well. So, you know, they really check a lot of boxes at the same time for you. So um, what do we do to encourage those forbs? I would say first and foremost, pay attention to your fire frequency. And then if I start to see issues with you know burning consistently on the same frequency during the same season, I start to get dominated by, let's say, native warm season grass, because native warm season grass oftentimes becomes dominant when we burn on a short fire rotation. And by that I mean, you know, usually every two years or so during the winter time. So when I start to see that encroachment by that native warm season grass, I think, okay, now is when I start thinking about strategies that I can do used to reduce that to favor more of the forb cover. And that might entail burning on into you know summer or even the late growing season, that early fall period, which, you know, uh some of the work that Marcus and I were lucky to be involved in that was led by Dr. Craig Harper at the University of Tennessee showed that that later uh growing season burn window was really effective at increasing that forb coverage without encouraging quite so much grass. You're still going to get grass back no matter what time you burn, but just due to the timing of when the various species produced that produced that seed coupled with that disturbance and basically creating a nice, you know, um a nice prepared seed bed, you can, by burning during that time of the year, somewhat encourage that forb growth. And I also think about in more open areas, something that I recommend to um landowners and managers that I work with is if you can get a disc in there, you know, during the winter time, running a kind of a moderate intensity disking through that native warm season grass can help break it up and also stimulate germination of that that forb seed in the seed bank as well. So um the long and short answer is is focus on Forbes, I think.

Speaker 1 38:17

Yeah, and I'll I'll add to that. The the timing of fire can be really important to address issues like uh you know the the fall or early early fall, late summer fire can help shift the plant community to be more forb dominated. But another thing, uh especially I I've seen it with a few of the landowners that I work with, their growing season is long because they're in the south, they get a lot of rainfall, and they have productive soil, and the plant community succession is extremely fast. So when you're thinking about managing rooting cover, there's a couple of components that are really important here. One is that we need for abdominance and insect production in that. Another is we need an open uh way for polts to move around through the vegetation at the ground level. So kind of think of it like this the forbs are a canopy over the polts and they're running around underneath that. And that needs to be relatively clean because we don't want them to be obstructed. You know, think about like a sod-forming grass if it's underneath those forbs, that might obstruct their movement, but it also might cause them a problem with getting wet. But another component that is usually not thought of is the height of the vegetation. You remember there's a hen with those polts, and she's living by her eyes, so she needs to be taller than that vegetation, and she's walking around kind of scoping out what's going on, and she might be forging around a little bit as well. The polts are underneath the vegetation, so the height of the forbs is not that important, but it is for that hen to be safe in that context. So what uh the reason I'm bringing that up is the timing of your disturbance might depend on what you know what conditions you're in. You might be able to burn in February and that plant community be optimal by the time they're brooding, or it might be too productive and it's already too tall.

Speaker 9 40:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1 40:22

I've seen places where the rag re weeds are already five foot tall.

Speaker 3 40:25

Yeah. In the black belt of Alabama, that's a problem all the time.

Speaker 1 40:29

Yeah. So that might be a case where delaying the burning a little bit later into the season can really help you. Yeah.

Speaker 5 40:37

Hey guys, let me ask this. Um listen to you, it's just your wealth of information. But I um it just bubbled up in my mind a quail hen, she's probably got these same problems that a turkey hen's got. But it maybe it is it as this that when you go back in time to this study, Marcus, you mentioned 1978 when y'all first started recognizing that the researchers were talking about hen survival. Could the as the habitat landscape may have changed, making it tougher on hens to nest, would the quail have fallen out first? But but would they have been an indicator that things were going bad early? Is there any parallels there?

Speaker 3 41:21

I think so, Bobby. Um, and and I think that the reason that quail are more s are presumably more sensitive to these habitat changes and the lack of the cover that we're describing in the modern day is because they're more you know obligated to that cover type, that early successional cover type, and and whereas you know, wild turkeys are more of a generalist species. If you just look at their habitat use on a year-round basis, you know, they use everything from bottomland hardwoods to upland early successional areas and everything in between, whereas the quail are more confined to those early successional areas.

Speaker 1 41:59

Yeah, and I'll add to that just a thought experiment to think think this through and connect to what I was just talking about a few minutes ago. With quail, the the hen and the brood are underneath that canopy, which is you know one of the the important things with quail, when you don't have that kind, it's in a problem for the adult survival also. But uh with you know, the sort of a difference between the two as well, when you're looking at you know the quality of early succession, the quail might do just fine with that five-foot ragweed. Whereas the the turkeys, you know, it's getting too tall because the hen needs to be able to see over it, whereas the hen and the the uh bob white is underneath it with the brood.

Speaker 3 42:48

But when we go when we go on places and we start increasing the coverage of brooding and nesting cover with the objective of increasing turkey populations, almost almost a hundred percent of the time we get feedback from the landowner, the manager, I've got quail now.

Speaker 8 43:07

Absolutely. Isn't that amazing?

Speaker 1 43:09

Another thing, just just to throw it out there, the other thing that they say is our turkeys have blown up. Yes. Yeah. And uh just uh I just got an example of this of landowner I was working with in Georgia has said just saw the largest flock he's ever seen ever. He's been working real hard on that property for about three or four years now, implementing various strategies, and he thinks the group is near a hundred. Wow, that's really when's the last time that was seen in the South? That's not that common. Don't let Bobby try to get it in the house. I mean, on XP and we're not gonna go any any uh any finer in scale than Georgia. I get I mean, but you know I'm Getting comments from other people who email me frequently from Georgia, uh and they're not seeing that. They they're concerned about their turkey population, they're asking me questions trying to you know improve things, but in that case, uh, you know, things turned around and and uh they literally have seen the biggest group ever. That's great.

Speaker 6 44:22

Well, you know, we we uh I'm rewinding a little bit. We were talking about how it just seemed like there used to be a lot more hens, and I I think the data suggests there were a lot more hens back in the day. Uh but you know, so from like about 40 to 20 years ago, uh if you were to look in an aerial map, you would just see all these squares of various stages of loblolly pine production. Uh everything from you know one growing season old that was probably decent early successional habitat, you know, to where it gets to be about five years old and it's you know doesn't have a lot of food. Uh nowadays, when you look at an aerial map, you just see vast expanses of mature pine.

Speaker 9 45:11

Yeah.

Speaker 6 45:12

Um, and not a whole lot of variation in, I mean, you don't see that patchwork effect. You just see a lot of pines that nobody can get thinned or cut. And 30 years ago, it was just squares of different colors everywhere in different stages. Um and I I just can't help but think that that's possibly one of the bigger reasons um that these hens aren't aren't living as long.

Speaker 3 45:39

Yeah, I mean it's gotten to the point now where you know timber markets for many of us in the southeast are such that if the if pulp wood will pay its way off the property, we're in pretty good shape, you know. Um and then at concurrent with that same situation, and maybe what has even exacerbated it is you know, the the farm bill and the CRP program had a lot of agricultural, open agricultural lands across the southeast planted into plantation pine. And a lot of that wood um, you know, is now becoming mature or has already been mature for a long period of time and has not been actively managed. So, you know, kind of tying a lot of what we've talked about together, we have these open areas that are now oftentimes dominated by exotic pasture grasses, which reduces their quality and their usability to turkeys, and then our forests are more mature than they ever have been and less frequently burned than ever, more closed canopy than ever. And so, you know, what's a turkey to do at that point in time?

Speaker 5 46:42

Interesting. It's kind of depressing when you when you hear listening.

Speaker 7 46:45

Well, if you can small land big picture, you know, the the things that are changing it, we can at least start preventing it. You know, well, it's actionable.

Speaker 3 46:51

It's actionable.

Speaker 7 46:52

It's actionable. There you go.

Speaker 1 46:54

Yeah, I mean, I I think what we have seen and shown is that individual landowners can do a lot of work to really turn things around and make a huge impact. And when you start getting to scale, where lots of landowners are doing that collectively, then we start turning the ship around. Yeah.

Speaker 6 47:14

Yeah, it it seems like you know the recreational value of land has kind of taken the forefront these days now that it's you know it's harder, harder to get your timber cut, you know, and unless you're a uh you know an institutional type uh forest landowner. Yeah, especially pines. So uh yeah.

Speaker 5 47:35

Will do you think do you spend more time talking turkeys or deer to people? Or is I guess it it could be just seasonal.

Speaker 3 47:41

More turkeys. Yeah, absolutely more turkeys, but um Marcus and I both cut our teeth working with deer, so have a lot of deer biology and management background and knowledge as well. Um and you know what's funny, Bobby, is uh I it almost feels like because you know, a lot of people know that we're turkey guys, and so if we go out to work with them, you know, they they start out with, oh yeah, turkeys first and only. But then the more you talk to them and you're driving around the property and stuff and you look, and it's like there's a deer stand, there's a deer stand, shooting house, shooting house, it's like, and then they start showing you pictures of deer that they've killed, and you're like, okay, so this is not just a turkey only property. You have yeah, you have some uh deer objectives as well, and so it's rare that we don't incorporate both species into management.

Speaker 8 48:30

Do you do you think it's um I had thought about an analogy like uh fish pond management, and I've always heard from fish biologists, you know, the not exactly acre for acre, but the larger the the pond, and especially habitat and cover too, but the larger the pond, the more it kind of manages itself a little better, you know, instead of the smaller and cleaner it is you gotta be really disciplined on. It seems like maybe two that it's just like deer are a little bit easier and don't need quite so much help as you know they they'll flourish and adapt in almost any conditions. I mean, I live in the edge of town now, and there's deer just I'm in the city limits, and there's just an overabundance of deer right under your nose everywhere. So it just seems like the turkeys need more help, kind of like the fish analogy.

Speaker 1 49:17

Yeah, I I actually think about it that way a lot. And I talk to the landowners, every everyone that I work with has a secondary deer interest, and uh, you know, that's super common. But what we focus on is let's be really deliberate about providing turkeys what they need, and uh those things are also good for deer. Yes, exactly. I was saying so that a lot of that is coming and uh uh from the turkey habitat management. There are a couple of things that we might add into it, for example, by strategically uh incorporating some some high quality bedding cover for deer so that we can anchor deer to it. It's really a powerful thing for you as a hunter to know where all the deer are bedding when you're coming onto your property. And you can strategically locate that. That's not for turkey production, that's too, you know, it's kind of too rank and thick for that, but it can be a real powerful thing from your deer management's perspective. So strategically locating that in places that you can access without disturbing it for your deer hunting can be really important, but outside of that, focusing on turkey productivity is getting you a lot of the way for deer. It is.

Speaker 7 50:35

Lane, go ahead. I was just, you know, y'all brought up deer. Um we we, and this is all anecdotal, we think our deer harvest is substantially less than it has been in previous years. Are y'all seeing the same thing in in Alabama and where you are, Marcus?

Speaker 3 50:49

Yeah, I've I've heard some whispers about that in Alabama, and I mean, going all the way back um to when I was in graduate school, I went to University of Georgia and had a great relationship with the um state agency there too. And I remember talking talking to you know their deer biologist at the time and um him mentioning that you know pretty much every year that they have one of these bumper acorn crops, they see harvest decline, and and that's a pretty true no matter where you go.

Speaker 5 51:18

I guess they just don't have to move as much. That's right. That's right.

Speaker 8 51:22

I've said it forever. You can have a place full of deer, but if they're not moving, you're not gonna see anything.

Speaker 5 51:27

Yeah, that's right. So so uh looking at both of y'all, uh landowners this spring, what what if they were gonna plant things, what would you guys kind of concentrate on? We're in the south, so clover was probably planted in the fall, hopefully, I would think. Y'all may have some tips to try to plant it in the spring, but what are you looking at? Uh, chufa probably bubbles up in your mind, but not now.

Speaker 8 51:49

Not now, though. It's too late for that. Well the summer, Kim.

Speaker 5 51:53

Lenny always broadcast. No, you're you're feeding Chufa.

Speaker 7 51:56

Lenny broadcast Chufa right up early March. Bobby, I think you kind of He's projecting here. He's projecting.

Speaker 8 52:02

Yeah, Bobby kind of stepped in it there. I'm sorry.

Speaker 7 52:05

Oh, you plant that stuff? You know, what would you plant this spring?

Speaker 5 52:10

Yes. Okay. That's what you meant right now. That's what I'm saying. No, no, after turkey seed. Okay, doctor. Let's caveat. Well, you can give him a Weber.

Speaker 8 52:18

You feel me a like a soft fastball up high, you know, had to be.

Speaker 5 52:25

That thing zinged right over my head. Okay. Do y'all remember the question or two?

Speaker 1 52:31

I don't. Was there a question I was just asking y'all for whatever y'all were talking about? What's the plan?

Speaker 3 52:39

Yeah, it's what will we be planting for turkeys this time of year?

Speaker 6 52:42

Um post after turkey season, yeah. No, after turkey season. Yeah. Spring plantings. Yeah, Bobby. Spring, early, summer plantings.

Speaker 1 52:51

Um, as y'all talked about a little bit after turkey season for most of us, chufa is a really popular plant. And uh, you know, that there's no question that chufa is extraordinary in its attractiveness to turkeys. If you have pigs, you're gonna have problems. Uh so keep that in mind. But the the other thing, you know, when I'm working with landowners to think about with chufa is it it is very attractive, but it's not necessarily influencing productivity of your turkey population. So thinking about having some of your openings in something that's a little better for brooding uh, you know, is is of great concern.

Speaker 9 53:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1 53:39

So keep that in mind when you're thinking about how you're gonna manage those openings. So having some chufa absolutely super attractive, we all have seen that. You know, turkeys love chufa, but the structure in chufa is not very good for brooding. So keep that in mind.

Speaker 8 54:00

Yeah, I wonder just out of curiosity, and I know it's man, it's gonna vary sort of soil, climate to climate, but how long if you you start a spot and you say, you know, what I've got ten acres here and I'm gonna turn it into what y'all ideally look for, I mean, the first thing you're gonna do is let it go. I mean, you might tell us to go ahead and kind of disc it one time or something to stir the soil, but then how long would you let that get into the early successional year after year after year until you decided to put a match to it? And I guess I know it depends on what's growing back there and all. And I think from listen, you you would want to see something that you feel like when you burn it, it's gonna be real clumpy, where a lot of openings and a lot of clumps included. But I mean, in general, how long would you let something go and not do anything to it if you're gonna develop that?

Speaker 3 54:49

Yeah, so my general process with that, and I'm I'm doing this actually on a seven-acre clearing um that I'm working with a landowner uh on right next to my house right now. And I'm I said um in one of our our recent episodes on our show that I was gonna do kind of a documentary series of going through this because we get this question so much. But basically, this was a place that was um overgrown with just natural regeneration following clear cut, so hardwood everywhere, most of it, you know, a lot of invasive woody species as well. And so we've just cleared it with a dozer, piled everything up, and burned it, and we're starting from bare mineral soil right now. And um in a lot of situations, the first thing that you have to do before you start out is is not just let it take off and grow, but it's rather you probably have a pasture grass problem that you have to deal with first if it's been open for a while. So um if it's a warm season pasture grass, I'm thinking about getting that area prepped, whether it's you know burning or or mowing. Um sometimes if people have equipment they can even hay it first. And what you're doing there is you're trying to just remove all the other vegetative material, especially the dead stuff, out of the way, so that you can get that fresh flush of growth that will allow your herbicide to contact the plants that you're trying to kill and get effective control of that. Um, if you've got a cool season grass problem, the best time of the year to do the same process isn't gonna be in fall, you know, when they start actively growing. So once that's out of the way, um typically for the first couple of growing seasons, if I got good control of my pasture grass, I'm just gonna be going out there, and this is the method that Craig Harper has described many times before, so I have to give credit where it's due, and just spot spraying the stuff that is remaining that I don't like with like a 3% solution of glyphosate. You know, just go out there with a non uh no cab tractor, and you're just hitting this, hitting that, hitting this, hitting that on a side-by-side is even a good way to do it as well. I've done it that way many times. And so I might do that for a summer or two, um, starting each year in June, and I'm hitting those sweet gums, I'm hitting those invasive species that I don't like, um, that aren't really contributing to my turkey cover. And then after those couple of growing seasons, if it starts getting to the point where the height, as Marcus mentioned earlier, it was a really important factor, is too tall for a hen to effectively see through that, that's when I start thinking about setting it back with fire. And then oftentimes, like you said, Toxie, it this is gonna vary depending on the soil quality and soil moisture and things like that and how fast things grow. Um, but most places I go in the southeast, I'm burning usually every other year. Um, if my goal is to have brooding and nesting cover, the year that I burn it is typically going to provide brooding cover. The year after I burn it, it's typically going to provide nesting cover. I continue that pattern most of the time until I start seeing um the grass density get really high because that's eventually going to happen if you just are managing the area with fire. And then I think about using a little bit of soil disturbance, maybe with a light disking or something like that, to break up that grass density and reduce it back down in favor of the Forbes again. And so once I've done that, I let it continue growing for a couple of years, and then I'm just managing it with fire again. And throughout that entire process, of course, if anything you know invasive or undesirable comes up, I'm just going back and spot spraying it. And the great thing about incorporating the spot spray application into that approach is that you end up with kind of this, as we would use in in academia, we we say it'd be a heterogeneous mixture of plants, meaning you've got some areas that are that are younger in terms of their successional stage and they're growing those heavy-seeded annuals, and then you have some areas that are more dominated by perennial plants and warm season grasses, so they're providing more cover. And so you can imagine that as you develop this matrix over time, not only do you have a lot of plant diversity, but you have a lot of structural diversity as well. So you're meeting more of the needs of the turkey in a smaller area.

Speaker 8 59:00

Wow, well, structural diversity. Yeah, the biggest thing, the biggest dark spot for us at this table, except maybe Dudley, is recognizing what you don't want for sure. That's true. And so getting to be a student of that uh it helps a lot. That's what I was that's an asset.

Speaker 1 59:16

I was gonna say, Toxie, one of the things I spent a lot of time and and even you know, in my my current role trying to put out video content to show people what they are looking for, what does that structure look like? Taking the time to try to visualize what you are looking for, and then catering your management practices to cause the plant community to look like what you want it to look like. And then when it doesn't, knowing what to do to convert it back into the structure that you want again. So that's really the the uh the the meat of this whole conversation right there is becoming you know a student, as you said, of what you're trying to accomplish. What does that look like? How does it how do we use these tools at our disposal to cause it to look like that? And then making sure, particularly for turkeys, that we have an adequate amount of it distributed through the property. And I generally, when I'm thinking about that, I'm really uh focusing on trying to make sure that I have really high quality nesting cover and really high quality brooding cover and having them close to one another. Because a a three-day old polt right out of the egg can't go very far. So, you know, where where that nesting cover is needs to be fairly close to that polt rearing cover. And if you're accomplishing that and distributing it, your turkey population can be very productive. You're providing them with all the the things that they need. And I'll add one more thing to what uh Will was saying earlier, you know, in the situation that Will laid out with that seven-acre field, you're you're probably getting a large enough field where you might be able to manage it for different stages even within the field and accomplish that. So you might have nesting and brooding cover right together there.

Speaker 3 1:01:15

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:01:15

And the other thing I wanted to add is you can do things with your forest management that can really enhance things, not just by providing nesting and brooding cover in the woods, because you can do that really effectively with enough sunlight and a and a fire regime, we can accomplish high-quality nesting and brooding cover, but you can also help with connectivity throughout the landscape so that a nesting hen can get her brood to brooding cover and then take that brood anywhere she wants on the property without ever having to leave it. And when we're creating that kind of situation, that's when you can really take the cap off of it and let the population explode.

Speaker 8 1:01:57

Well, it's also tells me that if you're maybe a little bit of a novice, you'd be better off to be a little heavier on the burn if you had to err on the side of the 50-50. And what he said a minute ago makes sense too. What I haven't done a good enough job in the past, I've kind of started on my mind last couple years is the postage stamp effect. And if you keep those, if you're burning on two-year regimen, well, if you're keeping those adjacent, then you're swapping them to where there's you know, there's there's a nesting in the rear and adjacent all the time.

Speaker 6 1:02:29

It's hard to look at a a unit or a burn unit and not want to burn it every year.

Speaker 1 1:02:35

Yeah. Well, you know, Dudley, there's nothing wrong with having some that are on an annual cycle. Right.

Speaker 6 1:02:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:02:41

Yeah. That that can prevent high quality brooding cover year after year. But I will say, most of the time when I step on a property, they are not disturbing frequently enough. Right. So hedging your bets and and being more frequent is usually a good thing.

Speaker 3 1:02:58

Here's another place you can bring seasonality back in too, because some of these places they grow so tall, so fast, that you almost need an annual burn rotation to keep them in the right structure for turkeys. So maybe you burn some of it, you know, in February, and that area is going to be more developed by the time you get around to, you know, the time that the polts are hatching and hit and start the hens are starting to brood and things like that, depending on where you are. And then uh you have other areas that you burn later in the summer, so you're not erasing all your cover at once. So you leave some of those areas thicker and you're gonna burn them later in the growing season, and you burn some of them you know in the dormant season so that they're gonna be more open. And that's how you can start getting some diversity that way.

Speaker 6 1:03:40

We've we've been picking up on the late summer burn and let me let me tell you, you need to be in better shape. I know that.

Speaker 8 1:03:49

Well, it depends on if you know, in but sometimes in a the canopy, you may not have enough fuel to burn good. A dollar sometimes. If it's all if it's all real lush green. Question I asked the other day to somebody too was um, so y'all would be a fan of just say we did a a summer, I mean a mid-winter burn. And you could lightly disc it, you would recommend that, right? After the burn in the middle of the winter?

Speaker 3 1:04:14

Um you you could. Sometimes I recommend that, especially if it's to the point where it gets really thick with with grasses and it's hard to get a disc to cut through it. I'll burn it first and then I'll disc it. And I've seen good favorable response after that. And it oftentimes creates a really open structure underneath, too, when you use it.

Speaker 8 1:04:31

So what's how late is too late is my question about that, where you could just say you burn a big area that's like prairie grasses and stuff, too, and you want it to go back in in a little bit like a patchwork to be safe, but how late is too late to be disturbing it after that with a little bit of discing?

Speaker 3 1:04:49

Down here, I I would want to get it done by February.

Speaker 1 1:04:52

Okay. So we're right at the limit right now. Yeah, you really need a window of dormant season right after you disc. Okay.

Speaker 5 1:05:01

Okay. So, guys, this is a good time to point out. I mean, we just heard these all these great explanations about what people need to be doing. You guys have a seminar coming up here pretty soon at the end of the month. Sign up. Can you tell us about that? How do we get signed up?

Speaker 1 1:05:18

Yeah, I appreciate you uh bringing that up, Bobby. Um, but this is something that I think Will and I have have both tried to address in many ways. People, you know, they they hear us talking about things, they see what we're putting out online, and they want more. They want access to us. So we've started this this uh in person uh seminar, and we've this is our second one that we've had. It's at the end of the month in UfaL, Alabama. You fall. And uh we're gonna spend all day there. Folks can sign up. We can provide links so that you can sign up beforehand. Make sure you go ahead and do that. Because we don't have much time left to sign up. But uh the idea is to get everybody in the same room, and Will and I have put together a really comprehensive day, essentially talking about everything that you need to know about managing a turkey population and your land to maximize turkey productivity. And we go through a variety of topics. We're talking about fire regimes, predator management. We have a uh part of the day that we spend showing how we have worked with landowners to set up their property. So it's kind of you know putting all of it together and showing how you might lay that out, because you know, this this can get pretty complex and overwhelming, especially if you you have a sizable piece of land, it's it's difficult, you know, to put it all together in a format that works for your land and also works for the turkey population. So that's the idea with this is you know, we're we're right there, we're going through all this in one day and putting it together for people and also you know, having discussions one-on-one with these people, you know, answering questions and talking about uh you know the the whole management strategy with everybody.

Speaker 6 1:07:18

And you I mean you can only learn so much and and uh from a podcast and reading a pub or whatever to to kind of see it and do it. Uh you know, it's like having an apprentice. So where do guys go to? It helps.

Speaker 3 1:07:33

Yeah, you can just go to so we partnered with Wildlife Investments uh to offer this. So you can go to wildlifeinvestments.com. We know those guys. Yeah, we do.

Speaker 7 1:07:42

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:07:42

And you click on uh the menu at the top of the screen, and there should be a drop-down for I think it's educational events. Um if you click on that tab, it'll pop up at the top of the page, and uh there's a registration link right there.

Speaker 7 1:07:56

We'll be sure to put that in the show notes.

Speaker 5 1:07:58

Yeah, and I think Bronson whispered in my ear that the first person to sign up gets it free. Oh that said they listened to it on the on our podcast. Out of the Bronson. How about that?

Speaker 7 1:08:08

Bronson, I like it. Well, bankroll Bronson.

Speaker 1 1:08:11

Yeah, so so as soon as you hear this, go ahead and sign up. Uh I I will also mention, you know, not everybody can come to that location. So we do change locations, or at least we have the first couple of times. Uh so you might get another chance. Also, we've got several people that have signed up for the second time. So they obviously gained a lot of value from the first time and felt like it was worth it to come again. So, you know, keep that in mind. Uh yeah.

Speaker 7 1:08:41

We should host one in West Point.

Speaker 6 1:08:43

I mean, these guys know. We could do it at the Ponderosa. Yeah, but I've just got all of the turkeys. We ought to be able to show them to have y'all. Uh, and I will add I've been seeing I've been seeing a couple really good FSI TSI videos. Yeah. Uh no doubt. If you act quick, there's one of Marcus with a with a pair of bright orange chainsaw chaps on.

Speaker 7 1:09:06

And uh he's showing you how to kill some stumps.

Speaker 6 1:09:08

Yeah, yeah. I learned a lot of things. That was very explanatory. Me too. Yeah, it was good stuff. Y'all are doing that. In fact, my wife told me about it. There you go. You know what? Y'all check it out.

Speaker 1 1:09:17

It was the middle of deer season. It was actually Thanksgiving week when I was wearing those things. That was my orange. That worked.

Speaker 5 1:09:25

You were sure visual. That's right. All right. Well, I'm looking at you. Through the years, we have asked you and Marcus a bunch of trivia questions. You guys uh you wanted to ask us one this time. So we're gonna let you have it. Are we still a hundred percent? We are a hundred percent. Oh no, the peanut patch trivia course. I'm scared. I ain't gonna be.

Speaker 8 1:09:46

Knock on wood, everybody knock on wood. Yeah, Bobby will jinx the best.

Speaker 5 1:09:50

Well, you've got to stick your neck out. You can't. I'm scared. Can we dial a friend?

Speaker 8 1:09:55

Pride cometh before fall, Bobby. All right, Marcus, you want to ask me on me?

Speaker 5 1:09:59

Just remember who we ate.

Speaker 8 1:10:01

Hey, this is flat, this is football in the backyard, and I'd get picked for I picked Marcus.

Speaker 5 1:10:06

Yeah.

Speaker 8 1:10:07

All right.

Speaker 7 1:10:07

All right, well, here's a question, Mark. Oh man.

Speaker 3 1:10:12

All right, here's the question. So, what is the doubling time in weeks of a wild turkey pulse body mass?

Speaker 7 1:10:21

Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 1:10:22

So, from how fast you know right off the top of it. How long does it take for it to double in weight right after it hatches all the egg? In weeks?

Speaker 8 1:10:30

So, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So you're saying the weight, if you like. Let me make sure it's starting day. Is it the the the the weight immediately upon hatching?

Speaker 1 1:10:39

Yeah, as soon as it pops out of the egg, that weight is somewhere usually 50 something grams. So y'all can convert that to ounces. I don't know what it is, an ounce of a couple of years. You said doubling. But how long does it take it to double? You can do days if you'd prefer, you can do weeks.

Speaker 8 1:10:56

So do we have to like get together on it, or we all get a guess?

Speaker 5 1:11:00

I think we all maybe get a guess. That gives us a better chance.

Speaker 7 1:11:03

Everybody guess something different. What are the rules here? Everybody, no, I mean we get a multiple choice four answers, please.

Speaker 5 1:11:10

Yeah, we got we got five chances.

Speaker 6 1:11:12

I'm gonna go with why don't we put $20 down on the table? No, it's not enough.

Speaker 8 1:11:18

We're not in a legal state of safety. I also don't want to lose 20 minutes.

Speaker 6 1:11:22

I'm gonna say two days. Well, okay, well, they said weeks at first.

Speaker 8 1:11:27

How many weeks? No. You said how many weeks to double? We did say we're gonna days if you like.

Speaker 6 1:11:33

I think that's obviously more than seven. I'm gonna go to no I know what my answer is. What are you gonna say? I'm gonna say seven days. One week.

Speaker 8 1:11:42

The least amount of time possible. I would have thought it would be a little bit more than that. I would think it would, yeah. I would think it'd be less than six. If they hadn't said that, I said two or three.

Speaker 6 1:11:48

I mean, they're flying in what? Not long. In a couple of days.

Speaker 8 1:11:52

They look like a quail in the city. 14 days they're flying. I'm still gonna stick with like three days.

Speaker 5 1:11:56

Aren't they flying in 14 days?

Speaker 8 1:11:58

Yep.

Speaker 5 1:11:58

Yeah, just are you going to be? I got that right.

Speaker 8 1:12:01

So everybody knows that, Bobby. My granddaughter knows that one.

Speaker 7 1:12:06

All right, Dud says seven. Toxie says three days still. I'm gonna say um he said weeks. I know he said that. That could be throwing you off. So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go 14. So I'm gonna take the no way. Well, I just he said weeks.

Speaker 5 1:12:22

And I had four days in my mind right before I learned that it was might be weeks. I had to. So you just cut Toxie off. But I mean, that's probably that's fair.

Speaker 8 1:12:29

That's not weeks, Bob. You gotta go on up some.

Speaker 7 1:12:31

You got three, four, seven, and fourteen. I'll go five. And I know I'm wrong. I'll go five days. Richie?

Speaker 8 1:12:36

Three days.

Speaker 7 1:12:36

What you got, dog?

Speaker 1:12:38

I still say two weeks, too.

unknown 1:12:40

No.

Speaker 7 1:12:40

Two weeks. No way. You gotta say okay.

Speaker 1:12:42

Uh well, you always say eight. Uh, no.

Speaker 8 1:12:45

All I can remember is two weeks describing to me how remarkably fast. Fast they grow.

Speaker 6 1:12:51

That's what threw me off when he said weeks. Well, then you should change your answer to two days. Maybe I can say half of it.

Speaker 8 1:12:56

I'll say two, but I'm gonna go to three. Three, two. Because you know the week thing got me.

Speaker 1 1:13:00

All right. Come on, Mark. We're ready. Did anybody get it? On our in our Pulp project last year, on average, it took about 13 days for them to double.

Speaker 7 1:13:11

I got it. 14, two weeks. No, you're right. We've got to give that two and then we're gonna do that. So we one thing gets right.

Speaker 6 1:13:17

He said he said in weeks and I said two. If it was prices right, you would have gone over and you would have lost. He said weeks and I said two.

Speaker 7 1:13:24

You can't say one and a half. I think Landy got it. So how long? Let me ask you this.

Speaker 8 1:13:28

How long does it take to double again? Calm down, been so excited. Sorry, sorry. My gosh.

Speaker 7 1:13:33

I'm not right much.

Speaker 8 1:13:34

So you got one right, okay. How long, how long to double again after 13 days?

Speaker 1 1:13:40

Uh the same. 13 more days. 13 more days. Wow. So one thing that you guys uh you may not have thought of is when right after they hatch, they're they're dependent on absorbing the yolk. Uh so they're actually they're not really good at foraging yet for the first little while and they lose some weight. Yep. That makes sense. Babies do that too. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for the kind of little chicken. I think we got that one right. 100%. That's pretty close.

Speaker 5 1:14:12

Y'all can't get out of here unscathed. We've got a trivia question. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 1:14:16

You know that I'm terrible at trivia.

Speaker 6 1:14:18

All right, let's go, Rich. Ask them the uh tail fan question again.

Speaker 1:14:24

I already got um our listener who left a review, C Hair74.

Speaker 7 1:14:29

C Hair74? That would not be me. That would not be me or Bobby.

Speaker 1:14:34

I haven't seen hair in like 15 years. I don't know. It's brought to you by a great podcast. Uh love the habitat management episodes. Keep up the great work. So, again, yeah, our trivia is brought to us by The Peanut Patch. So let's go.

Speaker 5 1:14:48

Let's go, Rich.

Speaker 6 1:14:49

I can't wait to get some peanut patch.

Speaker 1:14:52

He wants to get this question out.

Speaker 6 1:14:53

Yeah.

Speaker 1:14:53

Even though it's like an essay over here. So, in Bobby's never-ending quest to provide interesting supper table discussion for our listeners, we have a question about a bird you might see at your feeder. The human heart beats at about 70 beats per minute. Just over one beat per second. How many beats per minute does a cardinal's heart beat during the winter?

Speaker 7 1:15:19

I mean, good grief, Bobby. What about the summer? I mean, can you give that less specific?

Speaker 3 1:15:28

Early winter, late winter. Yeah, we'll take a new.

Speaker 7 1:15:32

February 17th, what is the average heartbeat of a cardinal? I knew the third. Well, they asked us more.

Speaker 1 1:15:41

Or some other kind of seed. Yeah, that's right. Bobby.

Speaker 5 1:15:44

Protein or carb. Well, they ask us how long it takes a turkey to double how many days. That was at least a little better than heart rate.

Speaker 1 1:15:52

At least we can guess that one. So we're looking for the heart rate beats per minute for a cardinal. For a cardinal? Any cardinal cards?

Speaker 3 1:16:01

Yeah. I'll go with I'll go with 200 beats per minute.

Speaker 1 1:16:05

I would say 190. Oh, I like that. Oh, he's cutting.

Speaker 8 1:16:08

He's cutting you off.

Speaker 1:16:10

Can we give him a little bit higher than that?

Speaker 5 1:16:12

Yeah, we might want to try that again.

Speaker 1:16:14

250. Maybe triple it.

Speaker 7 1:16:16

Oh, wow. Oh, wow. 600. 380.

Speaker 1:16:20

All right. So the answer is 600 beats per minute and around 1,000 when in flight. Good grid.

Speaker 7 1:16:26

Isn't that incredible? Yeah. That is incredible.

Speaker 8 1:16:28

I've heard that what's the uh the hummingbird is the one that's credible. Yeah. It's all that what is it, Bobby?

Speaker 7 1:16:34

What is the hummingbird when it's flying? In the spring, though, this time. Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:16:38

Okay. So we'll tonight you can go home at supper and you can amaze somebody with how many beats per minute.

Speaker 3 1:16:43

Man, that's just a normal dinner time conversation around my house. Yeah. That's right. You know what?

Speaker 1 1:16:48

My daughter probably would have known the answer to that. Yeah. You could have phoned a friend. But seriously, clearly I need to brush up on my cardinal biology.

Speaker 6 1:16:58

I mean, some of these classes they have to take in wildlife school are insane. So, you know, it's like you have to memorize 400 bird wings. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 1:17:08

For ideas. Good for them.

Speaker 6 1:17:10

Or you have to memorize the sound that like 400 birds make, and they play a sound, and you've got to say, well, that's a ruby crowned kinglet. Crested warbler. Yeah.

Speaker 9 1:17:23

Whatever. Let's get back to something relevant to discussion.

Speaker 3 1:17:26

I wanted to add one more interesting point to y'all about the turkey mass thing. Is uh if we grew as fast as turkeys, I had to look this up because I knew I had it written down somewhere. If we grew as fast as turkeys, a newborn seven-pound baby would weigh nearly 500 pounds by the time it was four months old.

Speaker 5 1:17:44

Oh my god.

Speaker 3 1:17:44

That's a whopper. Look at that, Bobby. Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:17:47

Now that's fast growing.

Speaker 3 1:17:48

Sumo wrestler stuff. It needs a lot of bugs to it needs a lot of bugs. And and I mean we talked about that earlier. You see these cicada hatches and and how the turkey populations respond. It shows you what bugs can do. Oh yeah.

Speaker 8 1:18:01

Yeah. So one thing today, it just again and again and again, after years of this, the darkest spot we have is the and it's the most vast thing to learn is all the native plant species and the stuff about them. And we've talked about it before with people that remind them not to you can you guys would have a good one to recommend to them, but this these are so many good apps now, especially in section of AI. Go out there and you know, I was thinking, how am I gonna know if it's I mean I I know some, but you know, some of this stuff is you know, you might have some rare stuff. I remember for ex real quick example, having a figure with army worms eating up like a hundred acres of millet on me. And the next thing I know, this beautiful purple flower just covers up the whole I've never seen it before. And um I forgot who I ended up asking. Oh, it was um Dr. Kaminsky at State at the time, was the waterfowl guru. He said, That's the most worthless thing you could possibly have in your water in your waterfowl. He called the name of it, and it was like this basically like hot pepper farm to eat it. Yeah, no, it wasn't I don't know, it was was it loose strife maybe?

Speaker 2 1:19:06

Oh I can't remember. Hopefully not.

Speaker 8 1:19:09

Yeah, like it was a bad one. And so I wouldn't have known. And so if you're walking through something, you're trying to you have your ha your own personal habitat project, which I encourage everybody out there to try. Amen. So maybe we could do something better on the Game Keeper site or through you to publish information about some of them. You could probably look it up too, but it could be like top, you know, top 50 wanted plants, top 50 unwanted plants, so you could know through your app what they were, and that's like, well, I need to smoke this one or I need to encourage this one.

Speaker 7 1:19:39

I think I've got iNaturalist, is that right?

Speaker 3 1:19:42

That's a really good one. Seek is also a really good one that's a little bit more user-friendly. And you know, Dudley can attest to this. If you know about 30 plants, uh herbaceous plant species, you can that's gonna cover probably over 80% of what you see in these areas that we manage for brooding and nesting cover. Of course, there's gonna be stuff out there that it doesn't occur as frequently, but the vast majority of plants, you know, if you use one of these apps or even the iPhone, if you take a picture now and you swipe up on it, it'll it'll try to ID it for you.

Speaker 6 1:20:12

Gosh, and insects and everything else nowadays.

Speaker 8 1:20:15

Yeah, that's right. So, and uh and another like fringe benefit of those is there's nothing like looking at like an expert to your hunting buddies, like knowing a few native plants. Yeah, I can't tell many times now that I've had an app for maybe five or six years, someone would send something to me, hey man, could you ask like Dudley or someone what this is? And then I'd pause a second and say, Well, I I don't need him, it's such and such and such and such. I'm looking up on the app.

Speaker 6 1:20:36

I get way fewer texts from my buddies now about that.

Speaker 5 1:20:39

So, guys, we used to we'd do a good job of this. We'd say, What'd we learn today?

Speaker 8 1:20:43

Too much to talk about.

Speaker 5 1:20:44

Yeah. I'd tell you what I learned that it's the one and a half year old bucks that are getting dispersed because I thought it was the button bucks. All this time I've been thinking she would run off the button bucks. No. It's the button bucks. Mark, you don't have to laugh at it. Mr. Whitell learned something today. It's the teenager, dude. I'm admitting I learned something.

Speaker 6 1:21:05

So right before gun season starts, they get you know, I thought it was the button buck all the time.

Speaker 8 1:21:12

I remember it was Georgia that founded that research when they were reading it to us back then, and they were saying that they would sometimes go as like miles and miles away. But we talk like repellent.

Speaker 5 1:21:21

But we talk about seeing button bucks by themselves in the in the winter, and you're like, Mama's runner off.

Speaker 8 1:21:28

No, because mom is sheltered, she is sheltered in place from getting chased by everybody.

Speaker 6 1:21:34

Yes, or mom got put in the freezer.

Speaker 8 1:21:36

Yes, very both of those, which means less dispersion.

Speaker 7 1:21:39

I'm admitting I learned something. Look at you, Bobby. You don't know everything.

Speaker 5 1:21:42

Listen, guys, y'all should go to the the seminar. Will and Marcus said it'll be a great time. You'll probably see Bronson there, but he doesn't know much about turkeys though.

Speaker 3 1:21:51

We keep him around to look good.

Speaker 5 1:21:53

Yeah, what does he take money at the door?

Speaker 1 1:21:56

No, he'll he'll be serving much. He's good at that, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:22:01

Well, thank y'all. I'm sure that'll be a that'll be a very educational seminar. It'd be worth everybody's time to try to go to that. Yes. All right, guys. Uh looking what a couple of things.

Speaker 8 1:22:11

Yeah, but just seeing just seeing you two perks me up because it's that time of year. That's right. Yeah. Knowing we're talking about you know, the rebirth of the world and the things we love. Right is awesome. Yeah, we love you guys. So big time.

Speaker 5 1:22:22

So, guys, y'all can go to their seminar, but at the NWTF, you guys will probably come by our booth some.

Speaker 7 1:22:28

Uh Dudley and I will be at the he's gonna have a QR code on his shirt, uh, and you can scan it and get registered for us giving away what, Bobby? A new Rate Gamekeeper edition 20 gauge shotgun.

Speaker 5 1:22:43

What's it got on the end of it? And it's got a uh silencer central suppressor, shotgun suppressor.

Speaker 8 1:22:49

I'm telling you.

Speaker 7 1:22:49

So, yeah, track Jackson down. Uh the good.

Speaker 8 1:22:52

That's all I need is for Marcus to get in back into Sumper County with one of those things. I'll never catch it.

Speaker 7 1:22:57

He'll never hear you, Marcus. That's perfect.

Speaker 8 1:22:59

I'll never catch him.

Speaker 7 1:23:00

Yeah, we might need to name this one after Marcus, actually.

Speaker 5 1:23:03

But yeah, y'all come see us, sign up for that. Somebody's gonna win the shotgun.

Speaker 7 1:23:06

Somebody's gonna win the shotgun. 400 giveaway still going on, too, so keep on signing up for that. Uh, we're trying to give everything. It's a separate one. That is a separate one, that's right. So multiple ways.

Speaker 6 1:23:15

We love giving stuff up. All right, guys.

Speaker 5 1:23:16

It's been a lot of fun. Appreciate y'all being here. Appreciate everybody listening. It's go time, folks. It is. Gobblings have started.

Speaker 7 1:23:23

It is go time.

Speaker 5 1:23:25

Work on your place. Yep, yep. Will, Marcus, we'll give y'all the last word. What have you got to say?

Speaker 1 1:23:31

Sure appreciate y'all having us. And I'll see, folks, if they stop by at the convention. Um I'm planning on hanging out with you guys some.

Speaker 7 1:23:38

All right.

Speaker 3 1:23:39

Yeah, thanks for having us. Always a good time, y'all.

Speaker 1 1:23:41

Absolutely. Thank you, Will.

Speaker 7 1:23:42

Yep, sir. Thank you, Marcus. We enjoyed it. Yeah, we always enjoy all.

Speaker 6 1:23:45

Why don't you say goodbye, Dudley? Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Richie.

Speaker 4 1:23:48

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Gamekeeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife magazine, and don't miss the Monte Oak Properties Fistful of Dirt podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Cudd Strickland.