151P - How a Wild Turkey Hen Chooses a Mate with Rich Buchholz

How a Wild Turkey Hen Chooses a Mate with Dr. Richard Buchholz

This week I have Dr. Richard Buchholz on the show to talk about how a wild turkey hen chooses a mate.

Dr. Buchholz has dedicated his career to studying mating behavior in the wild turkey, and we talk about some of the factors that have been tested in Dr. Buchholz studies and experiments. We also discuss some of his findings as well.

We talk about snood length, caruncles, beards, spurs, coloration, skull cap width, and many other factors that may have to do with why a hen chooses a male turkey to breed with.  We discuss that the hen uses those aspects of a gobbler's appearance to determine his healthiness and his ability to pass on good genetics to the hen's offspring.

Listen in and learn a little more about these amazing birds and their mating behaviors with Dr. Buchholz.