Historic Presence of Jungle Fowl in the American Deep South

[Florida Bullfrog]

I caught the two half-brothers in similar posses this morning (except I mirrored one so they'd be facing the same way for comparison purposes). I was trying to get updated pics of each but the sun went away before I could get some better posses.

Here's some hens and stags feeding through the blueberries. Generally neither of the two main flocks are venturing more than 50 or so yards away from the overall farmyard area this winter, which is around 2 acres surrounded by the larger blueberry fields and woods. That surprises me because I've cut their winter rations in half to make them forage even more and apparently they're finding plenty of food right around the house. Number 1's flock stays on the north side of the barnyard area and Ragnar's flock stays on the south side.

Some of you may be following my American game bantam thread. I removed one of the AGB F1s from the program because he got too heavy. When I turned him out to free range to see if free ranging might slim him up, he didn't last 30 minutes past sunup before Ragnar took out both his eyes and beat him to a bloody pulp. The AGB was not related to Ragnar.

Its becoming clear that the brood cocks will ignore very young stags and cockerels but will not tolerate any rival bird that's close to maturity and hasn't previously fit itself into the pecking order.

The brood cocks themselves are strict about avoiding each other's territories. But they don't go charging into a fight with each other either. When they start approaching their boundary lines the feathers on the back of their necks stand up and they start to ease up on their approach. When they see each other they'll stand off at around 50 yards.

They are half-brothers. I have recently read that in the case of wild turkeys where mature gobblers will form alliances with other gobblers during the breeding season, those alliances have been genetically proven to almost always be with half-brothers.

For someone wanting to free range multiple roosters together where the roosters are going to have a more territorial disposition, it may be useful to keep the roosters closely related and also keep an age difference between them so that there is only one mature cock in the flock with several youngsters underneath him.

 

[Degalisto]

I remember them at the San Diego Zoo as a kid..my favorite thing was to see the Jungle fowl..especially if they had chicks! When I went back years later..no Jungle fowl..well maybe hiding somewhere but none that you could see.
Those are some beautiful cocks!!

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Here are some pics from today. Its still winter here so there's only a little greenery to show.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

 

[SarahGfa]

Is the turkey there to keep the peace between gamecocks?

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Is the turkey there to keep the peace between gamecocks?

No, the turkey is there as a free range survival experiment. I have that jake and three turkey hens that I hatched in October. I’m attempting to see if a flock of heritage turkeys is practical to keep around free range and mostly self sustaining. I let this first turkey flock out only under my supervision. When they begin reproducing I’m going to turn loose about 20 of them when they are half grown to see if they will stick around. My concern is that they will leave when wild turkeys pass through the farm. If, however, I find that they won’t leave, they will be a good kind of self-sustaining poultry to raise.

As far as keeping the peace, I have found that method of socialization, age, and familiar relationship has a lot to do whether they tolerate each other or not. Here’s some observations that so far seem to be true:

1) Brothers brooded together will tolerate each other, at least up to over a year old. I’m not sure if that trend will continue or not as they reach two years old.

2) Non-brothers or brothers brooded separately will kill each other or be killed by older brood cocks once they get close to a year old and their spurs start coming in.

3) Stags significantly younger than a year with no spurs are freely tolerated by the year-old bull stags and older brood cocks. Those young stags will fight each other but the older cocks step in and break the fight up. I have watched the young stags beat each other to a stupor before the older cocks come in and break it up.

As where I want Number 1 and Ragnar to be my breeders, all near-two-year-olds have been removed off the farm, leaving those two bull stags to be my brood cocks. They seem fine so long as they have separate roosts, territories, and hens. If they mingle over food, Ragnar submits to Number 1 where I almost always do the morning feeding on Number 1’s side of the line. On the odd occasion Number 1 strays into Ragnar’s territory, Number 1 submits to Ragnar. I hope this will continue, but I’m fully prepared to find one of them blind or dead done day as they get older. I have hopes they’ll continue to tolerate each other based upon wild turkey biology. Wild turkey gobblers are highly intolerant of other gobblers during the Spring, but will at the same time form alliances with gobblers of similar age and strength. Turns out those alliances are based upon paternal relationship. Wild turkey gobblers partners are always half brothers through their father. So I’m hoping just maybe, that will carry through to Ragnar and Number 1.

I suspect had I raised these birds on tie cords or fly pens where they wouldn’t have had socialization into a pecking order since chickhood, they’d behave differently. When Ragnar killed the American game bantam cull that AGB had knew nothing except life in his coop with his hens. He didn’t know how to submit. He thought he was the king of the yard, so he acted like it to a superior foe he couldn’t beat. So I think at least a portion of how aggressive a gamefowl is out the chute is nurture and not just nature.

I also have guineas that run around as lords of all the poultry (except now the turkeys) and I’m sure that has something to do with how the Cracker birds are socialized. I read that old timey cock fighters who raised their birds free range on the farms of others wouldn’t allow the farms to keep guineas, geese, or anything else that might teach the gamefowl rooster how to submit, that to do so would ruin them for fighting purposes. Gamefowl guys who have shared their wisdom with me have told me similar things, and even in another thread posted that a true hot blooded game fowl can get a different disposition if it looses badly in a fight and survives.

 

[Ntsees]

No, the turkey is there as a free range survival experiment. I have that jake and three turkey hens that I hatched in October. I’m attempting to see if a flock of heritage turkeys is practical to keep around free range and mostly self sustaining. I let this first turkey flock out only under my supervision. When they begin reproducing I’m going to turn loose about 20 of them when they are half grown to see if they will stick around. My concern is that they will leave when wild turkeys pass through the farm. If, however, I find that they won’t leave, they will be a good kind of self-sustaining poultry to raise.

....

The Osceola wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo osceola) is a subspecies of wild turkey found only in Florida. If the wild turkey that comes into your property is this subspecies, I will hope that you will take measures to prevent cross-breeding between your domestic turkey and the wild turkeys.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

The Osceola wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo osceola) is a subspecies of wild turkey found only in Florida. If the wild turkey that comes into your property is this subspecies, I will hope that you will take measures to prevent cross-breeding between your domestic turkey and the wild turkeys.

Turkeys are only considered Osceolas if they are found below the county I live in. The State and the National Wild Turkey Federal drew a line and indicated that all turkeys below the line are Osceolas and all turkeys above the line are Easterns. I live in the zone where Eastern and Osceolas hybridize. The birds are legally Easterns but biologically hybrids with more Osceola traits.

As it is, the classification of the Osceola as a true subspecies is a bit of a tourist trap designed to get out of state hunters to sink money into Florida. A turkey hunter cannot complete their trophy grand slam without an Osceola turkey. Yes, Florida turkeys on the peninsula are different acting, but that’s also true of our deer. Their genetics follows the habitat. Florida is sub tropical and tropical. When both wild turkeys and whitetail deer were near extinction in the SE, deer and turkeys were both exported and imported from and to Florida, mixing up all sorts of genetics. But the habitat selects for small and slender builds and the genetic crosses that happened ended up not drastically effecting the biology of the native animals.

In fact we recently brought Texas cougars into Florida and cross bred them with the native Florida panthers and it made the wild population much more vigorous.

Were my hens to be bred by wild gobblers, they’ll give me very vigorous offspring and I’ll be better of for it. If my domestic gobbler breeds wild hens, then those offspring will either thrive in the wild and the wild turkeys will be better for it, or they will not be as fit as wild turkeys and die out.

So either way the wild turkeys will win. Free ranging is how all Florida livestock was historically kept. From the Cracker gamefowl to the Cracker cows and wild hogs and everything in between. Domestic turkeys intermingling with wild turkeys will be nothing new. I’m sure wild turkey blood is intermingled with domestic blood several times over.

 

[SarahGfa]

They seem fine so long as they have separate roosts, territories, and hens.

Are your Cracker birds descendents of red junglefowl, or do they come from gamefowl? I've read that gamefowl lose their "gameness" in a generation or two unless breeders make an effort to select for it.The feral flocks in Key West and Hawaii came from gamefowl, but the "gamest" birds culled themselves out. Like your AGB, who removed himself from the gene pool.

Turns out those alliances are based upon paternal relationship. Wild turkey gobblers partners are always half brothers through their father. So I’m hoping just maybe, that will carry through to Ragnar and Number 1.

How do wild turkeys know if they share a father? Have you ever watched the Maury Povich show? Even adult humans have no clue if there is a paternal relationship. Please share more about this theory

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

How do wild turkeys know if they share a father? Have you ever watched the Maury Povich show? Even adult humans have no clue if there is a paternal relationship. Please share more about this theory

It’s from a study published in Nature:

https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/03/02_turkeys.shtml

I have no idea how they know. The easiest answer may be they were brooded together and recognize each other.