Lol , I hear that a lot. Theyll just get replaced . Though I had more turkeys at that time than two people could limited out on . I ain't talk jakes either.

Come to think of it…….it may actually yield better results to fence out the deer and pigs and only allow the coons to have access to the corn……That way you could better isolate the impact that each pound of corn has on the coon population……If not then when you throw out that 10 lbs of corn…..the coons may get 1 lb of it…..they may get 5 lbs…..they may get 8 lbs…..or they may get none…….Lot of variance there depending on how much the deer eat up. If you just allow the coons to get to it then you could easier attach a rate of change per “unit” of corn if that makes sense……Then you could take that and apply it to people feeding deer and say that for every “X” amount you allow the coons to consume, this is what you can expect…..So if you feed a ton of corn and the coons get 10% of it… or 50% of it,.... or 75% of it…..this is the potential change you could expect. Something kinda like that anyways.

Just think how many it would have been if timed differently.

Yea, I heard that too. There has been little to no turkey research in AL in the last 30 years unfortunately.

That would be awesome. If we could get the State to pony up some money, we might be able to do some more good research!

Actually if you were going to go the route of just trying to feed coons then you could completely change your means of delivery……Instead of using a traditional deer feeder and trying to fence out other critters…..you could put the corn in something that just the coons could get to…..Maybe simply a trough 4 ft high built on a couple 4x4’s.

no idea , but it worked for me .

……or…..or… ….you could take one of those 275 gallon water totes that you see all the time on craigslist and simply cut some holes in the sides of it big enough for coons to crawl in and out of it…..That’d keep your corn dry

lol .

I think the issue is when you artificially increase the number of birds feeding/pooping in a concentrated area the risk increases. Then there's the whole aflatoxin issue.

The more I think about it…..I really don’t know how you could test it any other way without just feeding the coons……There’s just too much potential for variability in simply running a timed deer feeder. You have no idea really how much of the corn is being consumed by the coons so therefore its impossible to make an accurate assessment of any change that may or may not occur……If at the end of the experiment it shows no change, will it be because the coons only got 5% of the feed or did they get 75% and it just not had as significant of an impact as we assumed??....You don’t know…..

You need to feed the coons a known amount of feed and then measure the change…..In reality they are getting some “X” amount anyways…..What I mean is….For every 100 lbs someone feeds they are getting 10 lbs of it…..or 50lbs of it…..or what have you…..That’s a whole different task of estimating the percentage they are consuming and its going to vary…..What we need to know first is basically how much change does a pound of corn create….. or a ton of corn…..or ten tons of corn

Cnc , they just need to keep as normal as they can and get a base line from there. Then any body can ifing it how they want to .

From spot to spot its gonna differ. The main goal i hope is see what affect its having on paper . I pretty much already know from hunting where a place was heavily fed that was coon hunted also .



Buttttt. There were a lot of turkeys there too

Put the corn up in a tree.

Exactly.....Its going to vary from place to place......So what is "normal" when it comes to the amount of feed the coons are consuming?......Is it 30% of the feed??....Higher?.....Lower??

So whatever number you agree with…..let’s say its 30%.....That means that for every 100 lbs of corn we put out we’re assuming the coons are eating 30 lbs of it……So why just assume it and guess on that part??.....Why not just feed the coons a known 30 lbs of corn and measure the change??

See what I’m getting at here…..Why even introduce that layer of uncertainty to the experiment?.....You're just asking for bad results and scrutiny