Drop-Tine Podcast -The official deer management, food plot & habitat podcast · Jason R. Snavely

Do Wild Turkey Poults Prefer to Forage in Regenerative Food Plots or Conventionally-managed Food Plots?

·45 min·3 clips

One 10-day-old poult had eaten over 100 snails in a single crop sample.

Jason opens the season three premiere and notes that the show is still finding its feet even after almost eight seasons. He says the move to Supercast should make delivery more dependable. This conversation brings in Will Fowler, whose first podcast recording Jason says went smoothly. Jason links the episode to the previous conversation with MSU graduate student Luke Resop. Luke had been talking about new wild turkey research at Mississippi State led by Fowler. Jason says the subject caught his attention because managing land for wild turkeys is a major goal on his Pennsylvania farm. He also looks back more than 26 years to his undergraduate days at Mississippi State. Back then he worked under Dr. Mark Smith, who was then a graduate student of Dr. Wes Berger. That older project involved human-imprinted bobwhite quail chicks. Jason says he got to be mama for hundreds of those chicks. The episode folds that old memory into a new turkey study. Jason and Fowler also joke about turkey calling. Fowler says he can call turkeys, but it does not sound pretty. He explains that technicians handled most of the hands-on work while he was doing bed sampling and keeping the project moving. The conversation then turns to why invertebrates and arthropods matter so much. Jason points out that they are important sources of essential amino acids and protein. He ties that to how fast quail chicks and turkey poults grow and feather out. From there the episode asks whether those foods ever limit turkey poults as they develop. The question hangs over the talk as Jason presses on what habitat conditions give poults a better foraging start. The result is a shop-talk interview that mixes personal history, field observations, and the mechanics of habitat management into one practical conversation.

As heard by us

A turkey habitat talk that keeps the biology and the land work in the same frame.

The episode keeps its focus on wild turkey poults and the habitat questions around them, using Jason's land work in Pennsylvania, an old Mississippi State memory, and a first-time podcast recording to frame the discussion.

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Why you'd press play

You want a wild-turkey research conversation that starts in the field, not the podium.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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