Nest located in thick brush on top of a ridge in Louisiana
The methods employed by the wild turkey hen in nesting and rearing a family do not differ materially from those of the tame turkey. The nest itself is a simple affair, fashioned as if made in a hurry, and consists of a depression scratched in the earth to fit her body comfortably, then a few dry leaves are scratched in to line the excavation. Again, the nest may be under an old fallen treetop or tussock of tall grass, or beside an old log, against which sundry brush, leaves, and grass have drifted, or in an open stubble field or prairie. There is one precaution the hen never neglects, however slovenly the nest is built; this is to completely cover her eggs with leaves or grass on leaving the nest. This is done to protect them from predaceous beasts and birds, particularly from that ubiquitous thief and villain, the crow.
The eggs, usually from eight to fifteen in number, are quite pointed at one end, a little smaller than the eggs of the domesticated turkey, showing considerable variation in size and shape. In color they are uniform cream, sometimes yellowish, and, when quite fresh, with a decided pink cast, spotted and blotched all over with reddish brown and sometimes lilac.
The period of incubation is four weeks. On its first appearance the young wild turkey is covered with a suit of light gray fluffy down, dotted with dusky spots, and with two dusky stripes from the top of the head, down the sides of the back to the rump; but this is soon replaced by a covering of deciduous feathers, and this in turn by the permanent suit at molting in August and September. The first crop of feathers which takes the place of the down grow very rapidly, assuming in their maturity the precise shape and color of the subsequent and permanent growth, and at three months the turkey is in appearance the same as one of nine months. The young bird of two or three pounds weight has the same outline of form as the yearling, but the little fellow in down bears a striking resemblance to a young ostrich. The deciduous feathers mature quickly, and the quill-ends dry before the young bird is a quarter grown; hence the feathers grow no more. But the bird grows until molting-time arrives, when the young fowl, if a gobbler, will weigh from seven to nine pounds. The molting season comes on apace, and the bird is out of humor; for its clothes, as it were, do not fit, the mosquitoes and ticks bite it, and the deciduous quills of the wings begin to get loose and drop out, one at a time at long intervals, so that some feathers are growing while others are falling. This is also true of the body covering. The tail becomes snaggled and awry, and at the time the young turkey presents anything but a pleasing appearance. The molting begins in August, and it is the last of December before the full second suit of feathers is completed. It is the irregular growth of the feathers that often deceives the hunter as to the age of the fowl. Once a friend of mine and I, after a morning's hunt, stopped to rest and got into our boat. He had three fine turkeys, the time being early in November, and he remarked that he wished he had killed at least one gobbler to put with his hens. On examination I showed him that two of his three were young gobblers and the third an old hen, although the birds were about the same size and the plumage almost identical.
The tuft or beard does not appear on the young gobbler even in the Southern climate until late in October or November, nor have I known them to gobble or strut at this early age, although the tame ones sometimes do. The gobbler's beard grows quite rapidly until the end of the third year, and then slowly until eleven or twelve inches long, when it seems to stop. It may be owing to its wearing off at the lower end by dragging on the ground while feeding; but a close inspection will not substantiate this, for the hairs at the extreme end of the beard are blunt and rounding, and do not indicate wear from friction. The young gobbler's beard is two inches long by the end of November of the first year of his life. By March it is three inches long and stands out of the feathers one inch. At the end of the second year it is five inches long, and at three years about eight inches long.
Hen, wild turkey, and three young. On account of the extreme shyness of the mother, young turkeys are very hard to photograph