Bearded Hens
 

Is it rare to see a bearded Hen,or is it so common that most of you would not shoot one and spend your tag? I saw my first over the weekend, 6" on a big fat hen,I confess I would have been tempted to shoot her due to her size and length of beard. What would you do?

Took one a few years ago. It had a rather skinny 7 in. beard. It was the first bearded hen I had ever seen.

Don't think I would shoot a bearded hen.....but if she could gobble! Lol!!

I would probably let her walk. Our turkey numbers have been low the past few years, and we need every hen we got to be hatching out polts

I've only seen one in all the years I've hunted, so I don't think they are as common as some say. I wouldn't shoot one in the Spring season and I don't hunt them in the Fall because of all the big game hunting I'm doing.

I seen one a few years ago while in the blind. I wouldn't shoot one either.

i havent come across one,
if i did would most likely let it walk,
its legal and nothing wrong with it.
comes down to personal decision.
regs are written for bearded turkeys and not just toms for simple reason, cant always easily differentiate between bearded toms/hens, and so not to punish someone who takes a bearded hen, regs at least in most states, allow it.

Nice picture RR she's a good one.

We have lots of bearded hens, I have killed some and let others walk. About 8 years ago I called in 3 gobblers with 11 hens, 7 of which were bearded. Some studies suggest that multibearded gobblers come from bearded hens. Don't know if there is any truth to that but I do know we kill and get game cam pics of many multibearded turkeys. We have one particular hen my son is wanting to kill, her beard will be in the 9" range. He let her walk last year and this year already to shoot her boyfriend. We are still seeing her in the field, she might be in trouble this time around.lol

I dont' see very many bearded hens, but I would definately take one if given the opportunity.

Bearded hen or not it's still a hen to me and if it is big one it's better to let it's progeny increase like the bigger the breeding stock the better.
It goes for the toms also. If I were to pick between 2 Toms side by side I'll probably shoot the smaller Tom if I know there are not too many of them big ones.
Size is one thing that's genetically inherent and would love to have all turkeys in my bush size extra extra large.

I have seen many bearded hens in my years of hunting, and have taken one in Ne, and one in Mo. We have a bunch of them here in Missouri.

I have seen a couple so far scouting this year,being NY's turkey season doesn't open til May 1 st. Would be in fall season if I did happen to shoot one. Spring season in NY is Tom/Jake only. THe only way I shoot one then is if she was having a beard about 8"or longer.

I saw one Friday just wandering around. Nice beard too. But I personally wouldn't shoot one around my property because I really don't have an overabundance of birds to begin with and I need all the hens I can get. I can understand though if someone wanted to get a hen with beard mounted though. I usually see one about every other year or so somewhere around out in the countryside. So while they are definately in the minority, they are really not all that rare.