Generally upland birds have relatively short lives on the average. That's why nature builds in a high reproduction rate. However depending on habitat quality and lots of other influences, good or bad, that lifespan can ether be shorter or longer.
Obviously the most critical time in the case of a turkey, is from hatching till being able to fly up into lower branches and roost with the hen. That is around the two week plus stage. The older they get their ability to survive increases.
I had a friend, a turkey biologist from Missouri years ago that expessed that if a mature turkey was taken by a predator, there was something wrong with that bird. That is obviously an over simplication, as predators take turkeys. What he meant was that generally speaking mature turkeys are more than a match for most predators, including avian, which probaly have a slightly upper hand. Over the years I have personally witnessed the ability of turkeys to frustrate predators in several ways.
On the turkey's upper end there is documentation of many that live beyond what one would reasonably expect. Two cases I'll share.
1. We had a banded hen in Klickitat that was recovered dead after 11 years, if I still recall correctly. She was an adult when the banded. Therefore the estimated age was at least 13.
2. Another friend, a biologist from Pennsylvania, once related a story about a mature gobble, probably 2 years of age, that was removed from a leg hold trap on a wildlife area in Pa. They had to remove part of one leg. Although they never saw the bird again, there was evidence off and on of a one legged turkey during winters for the next 10 years. Thus it lived until 12 or perhaps 13.
Unusual yes, but probably more common than one would think. Hunting probably influences the age gobblers attain more than anything else. It also has the same effect on hens during either sex fall seasons.
Hope that helps somewhat.
