Originally Posted by CNC
There’s something like 15 different kinds of hawks and owls in Alabama…..If a hawk, owl, bobcat, or coyote will target a rat it will target a young turkey poult………Somewhere there’s a study that talks about how each different raptor tends to be honing in on targets in certain diameter size ranges such as a golf ball or baseball or softball ……That’s what their eyes are searching for…..It wouldn’t matter to them if it was a gopher rat or a young turkey poult

I imagine when they’re little bitty then pretty much anything would target a turkey poult but as they get bigger then the pressure probably shifts more to just the bigger hawks and owls and bobcats…There’s lots of different predator species that are going to target poults along the way though and the majority of those have base diets revolving around rodents as their main food source…..I read one land managers first hand account from the Chattahoochee Valley that said he observed red tail hawks being a significant predator of poults……


A blue Darter will kill a full grown chicken, duck, etc. Young turkey ain't any problem for that little bird.