05/05/2026
Everybody wants more turkeys for turkey hunting, but nobody wants to put in the work to do it. We have a nest problem in a lot of places, including Ohio. Raccoons, possums, skunks, snakes, coyotes, crows, hawks, owls, and everything else out there looking for an easy meal will raid turkey nests or kill poults. Some studies have found roughly 80% nest failure, and predation is the biggest reason nests fail. So does that mean we need to wipe out every predator? No. But if you have predators eating eggs, and you remove some of the things eating the eggs, you are probably going to end up with more eggs. That is not complicated. If I have 20 dozen eggs in my refrigerator and kick half the people out of my house, I am probably going to have more eggs left at the end of the week.
But predators are not the only thing hunters like to blame while doing nothing themselves. Turkeys need cover. Hens need thick nesting cover near food and water. Poults need early successional habitat with, bugs, and enough overhead cover to hide from things trying to eat them. That means hinge cutting, timber stand improvement, prescribed fire, mowing at the right time, creating edge cover, letting fields grow up, and actually managing land for turkeys instead of just complaining there are not enough of them. More than one thing can be true at once. Yes, trapping nest predators matters. Yes, habitat matters. And if we actually want more turkeys we need to be trapping more raccoons, improving more habitat, and finally looking in the mirror and asking what we are actually doing to help. It’s up to us.
— Stephen Ziegler
Outdoor writer | Owner, DeLong Lures
