bearded hens and would you shoot?

[rick_iles]

I won't shoot a hen.....period. I've seen many bearded hens over the years, some with some pretty impressive beards. All get a pass. I don't know how anyone can mistake a hen for a jake or gobbler, regardless of a beard.
I will also pass on a big gobbler to take a jake.

[G.S.]

only if badly wounded and needs to be put to sleep.

[Fox]

That they are full of eggs?????

I'm not against shooting hens in the fall as they are not full of eggs as well as have a nest full of eggs on the ground. No different then shooting does in the fall, nothing wrong with it at all but would you shoot a pregnant doe in the spring if it was legal???

Sorry duck but the does are pregnant in the fall too, just early on in their development.

Shoot a hen in the spring and get a couple delicious turkey eggs when you clean her, mmm. Every clean a hen? Lots of eggs in there, all different stages of development and usually 1 or 2 with full shells when you open her up.

If the population is good it does not matter at all, the babies are not hatched out, you are not orphaning anything, no different than a doe in the fall.

The baby has no development at all until they start to set on the eggs, full development outside of the turkey.

If you really think about it, the less we shoot bearded hens the more than genetic trait will pass along and more bearded hens will be around, like tuskless elephants.

[duckslayer]

Fox, your reply is borderline rediculous but there is no need to argue it out, I'm allowed my opinion and you are within your legal limits shooting bearded hens if you feel the need to.

On a side note you keep saying the populations are healthy enough to take hens which is good to hear as it has been nothing but doom and gloom from you eastern Ontario guys about the population decline the last few years, good to know it sounds like numbers have rebounded out that way. Have at your hens!!

[Fox]

Fox, your reply is borderline rediculous but there is no need to argue it out, I'm allowed my opinion and you are within your legal limits shooting bearded hens if you feel the need to.

On a side note you keep saying the populations are healthy enough to take hens which is good to hear as it has been nothing but doom and gloom from you eastern Ontario guys about the population decline the last few years, good to know it sounds like numbers have rebounded out that way. Have at your hens!!

What I am saying is that to think of shooting a doe in December as different than a hen without any babies but eggs on the ground is exactly the same thing. That doe has been bred, it is pregnant, it is called a gestation period. Shooting a hen in the spring without any actual babies behind it is no different than shooting a doe in the fall, the same exact potential to lose offspring. If the population is good enough to support it then females can and in many cases should be removed from the population.

Ask some of the farmers what they think about the turkeys, none of them in my neck of the woods or back home in SW Ontario would have any problems with the turkey population going down a little.

[duckslayer]

What I am saying is that to think of shooting a doe in December as different than a hen without any babies but eggs on the ground is exactly the same thing. That doe has been bred, it is pregnant, it is called a gestation period. Shooting a hen in the spring without any actual babies behind it is no different than shooting a doe in the fall, the same exact potential to lose offspring. If the population is good enough to support it then females can and in many cases should be removed from the population.

Ask some of the farmers what they think about the turkeys, none of them in my neck of the woods or back home in SW Ontario would have any problems with the turkey population going down a little.

Again this is your opinion and not mine, I don't see it the same way but I know you insist that the way you think is the correct way so go ahead and think that but I don't as do many others! Shooting a hen in the spring is not the same as shooting a doe in the fall.............I'm leaving it at that and I don't care how you see it. Thanks for the biology lesson though.......wow.

[MikePal]

as it has been nothing but doom and gloom from you eastern Ontario guys about the population decline the last few years, good to know it sounds like numbers have rebounded out that way.

, none of them in my neck of the woods or back home in SW Ontario would have any problems with the turkey population going down a little.

Odd comment DS, I have never heard a single comment about the lack of Turkeys in Eastern On..quite the opposite. If you remember the initial Turkey re-introduction program started here, as it was ideal conditions. We're inundated with turkeys, probably beyond holding capacity.

Makes hunting Tom's a little more difficult as they have huge harems of hens. I learned many years ago that hunting is better late in the season when the hens are sitting and the Toms are out by themselves late in the afternoon.

Shooting a hen is inconsequential...has no bearing, infinitesimal affect on the population.

Again it all goes back to the Trophy pic not the meat.

[Fox]

Again this is your opinion and not mine, I don't see it the same way but I know you insist that the way you think is the correct way so go ahead and think that but I don't as do many others! Shooting a hen in the spring is not the same as shooting a doe in the fall.............I'm leaving it at that and I don't care how you see it. Thanks for the biology lesson though.......wow.

Fertilized egg, sitting on the ground or sitting inside a deer, same thing.

The gestation of a turkey is about 28 days, this is the incubation time outside of the bird. If they lose their nest due to predation they can and often do have a second clutch of eggs and have another 28 day attempt to hatch those out. The gestation for white tailed deer is 201 days, about 6.7 months, this would mean that a deer born in may was conceived in October. Therefore, your November gun hunt, every single doe that is shot has the very real potential of being pregnant and every doe shot in December is even more likely.

This is one thing that blows me away, people talk about a spring hunt being so bad as you are killing 2 or more animals, blah, blah, blah, but what you fail to grasp is that if there is a population that can support the loss of X number of female animals it does not matter one bit when they are removed from the herd. The only time that 2+ animals are killed is after they are born. If you consider the fawn being in existence at conception then we should never shoot a doe without the expectation that we are killing 2 animals. If you kill a doe in February or March and it has a mostly developed fetus it is no different than that animal killed in November. The same with a turkey, if you kill a hen in the fall or in the spring you still have the potential for the population to take a hit due to the loss of that one hen's offspring but if the population in that area can take that hit then why does it matter at all. Many places have turkeys over carrying capacity as Mike said. In Eastern Ontario you never have toms running in like SW Ontario, we have tons of hens and few toms, they don't care about the decoys or the calls until they have bred every last hen and they are looking for something new.

[werner.reiche]

What I am saying is that to think of shooting a doe in December as different than a hen without any babies but eggs on the ground is exactly the same thing. That doe has been bred, it is pregnant, it is called a gestation period. Shooting a hen in the spring without any actual babies behind it is no different than shooting a doe in the fall, the same exact potential to lose offspring. If the population is good enough to support it then females can and in many cases should be removed from the population.

Ask some of the farmers what they think about the turkeys, none of them in my neck of the woods or back home in SW Ontario would have any problems with the turkey population going down a little.

Big difference Fox - the doe has not survived the winter. The hen has. We still lose a lot of turkeys during the winter. That's why the fall seasons (where they exist) allow shooting any turkey - a lot or going to die over winter anyways. To consider the two the same case defines all logic - but I see a lot of that going on in this thread.

[Fox]

Big difference Fox - the doe has not survived the winter. The hen has. We still lose a lot of turkeys during the winter. That's why the fall seasons (where they exist) allow shooting any turkey - a lot or going to die over winter anyways. To consider the two the same case defines all logic - but I see a lot of that going on in this thread.

So because we will lose some in the winter we can shoot some in the fall, is that not the same logic that has destroyed the moose population in Ontario?

If you kill an animal then that animal is dead, no matter if that is in the fall or the spring. What that animal can produce in it's lifetime does not change based on when it was killed. If that hen is killed by a fox in the spring or freezes to death in the winter it changes nothing.

If you kill 50 hens in the fall then you have 50 less hens in the spring, if you kill 50 hens in the spring you have 50 less hens in the fall, same thing. If winter will kill 50 hens in the winter how does it make any sense that you will be able to kill 50 hens in the fall and have 0 die in the winter.