Improvements in Food for Turkey

[tlh2865]

I know this is a deer hunting forum, but I wonder if you guys could help me with a turkey problem. I have been full scale overhauling what little land I have to work on for deer over the past 2 years, and I have seen vast improvements in deer usage, and health. But what should/can I do to try to feed my turkeys? I know all the turkey hunters swear by Chufa, but I don't think I have enough room to plant it. I have half an acre of ground I could plant on, but I don't want deer there during the season. Any trees, shrubs, forbs, or other improvements I could make to help feed my turkeys?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[MarkDarvin]

First time I ever planted buckwheat in the spring, it seemed to draw attention from turkeys every day until my other seed dominated the plot.

 

[cutman]

What’s your turkey population like now?

Turkeys do indeed love chufa, and it’s the only thing I plant for turkeys that deer don’t mess with. If you are positive you don’t want chufa, my follow up plan would be clover/grain mix (but deer would mess with it as well). Warm season options could include buckwheat, millet, sorghum, etc, but the deer would mess with that as well.

 

[SwampCat]

A wheat/ladino plot is hard to beat for turkeys. It provides something year round unless the clover burns up in the summer. If you already have wheat and clover, a browntop millet plot for bugging and seeds will attract every hen with poults in your area.

 

[DocHolladay]

I have noticed that the turkey will utilize what I plant for the deer very well, without me doing anything special. Just make sure that you have hardwoods for them to find mast crops and native vegetation for them to get bugs and native small seeds. They are pretty adaptive to what is around them and will use it to the fullest for their needs. I had thought about chufa at one point, but read and heard that it can become a weed if not handled properly because it is a nutsedge(thats what I was told).

 

[Hoseman]

I agree that turkeys love buckwheat when I planted it.

 

[E_308]

Clover with a grain nurse crop. Feeds everything.

 

[gut_pile]

If you want more turkeys, worry about nesting and brooding habitat before you worry about food.
Also, don't discount dirt, turkeys love dirt

 

[j-bird]

All I know about turkey is that they love to walk the rows of a corn field plucking freshly germinated corn seed from the ground and they also really like beechnuts. And they do seem to like dirt.....I have a few places where I have sand deposits left from spring floods and they always seem to have turkey tracks and evidence of "dusting" in them. I'm not a turkey hunter so I'm not much more help than that.

 

[Jeff H]

First time I ever planted buckwheat in the spring, it seemed to draw attention from turkeys every day until my other seed dominated the plot.

^^ This...Buckwheat has always drawn turkeys to my plots as well.

 

[tlh2865]

My population is pretty good in my opinion, holding probably 6 hens and 3 toms in 80 acres ish. I opened up roosting habitat and that brought in all of those birds,(I didn't hold any before) I just worry about food for them. I'd love to plant chufa, I just think they would destroy a half acre plot of it

 

[dogghr]

Overseed a grain into your clover each fall and let your clover grow at least foot tall thru the year. Allow weeds and grasses to be part of plot. Don't spray chemicals, let the insects move in, and sit back and watch the turkey feed.

 

[KDdid]

I'm planting two oaks with smaller sized acorns just for turkeys and other small game. In my area Chinquapin and pin oaks both produce smaller acorns, and pin oaks also grow in a manner that makes a lot of perpendicular branches fairly close to the ground, providing roosting opportunities for birds.

 

[DocHolladay]

I'm planting two oaks with smaller sized acorns just for turkeys and other small game. In my area Chinquapin and pin oaks both produce smaller acorns, and pin oaks also grow in a manner that makes a lot of perpendicular branches fairly close to the ground, providing roosting opportunities for birds.

I have checked a turkey's crop and they have acorns so big, you wonder how they even ate them. I have also seen them so full or corn and other grains, they can't fit another one in it. As for low hanging limbs, most turkeys I see, roost toward the top of the tree and over or by a creek if there is one present.

 

[KDdid]

I've not had the opportunity to examine a turkeys crop except in the spring when they were full of greenery- but I've seen my chickens swallow some stuff I never thought would go down their pipe. I do have a couple of oaks that turkeys like to roost in on the back fence row, when I've observed them flying up, they usually go part way up first , then jockey for position in the upper limbs. I've noticed that the trees they prefer have limbs in the first 20' or so.


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[Mennoniteman]

All I know about turkey is that they love to walk the rows of a corn field plucking freshly germinated corn seed from the ground and they also really like beechnuts. And they do seem to like dirt.....I have a few places where I have sand deposits left from spring floods and they always seem to have turkey tracks and evidence of "dusting" in them. I'm not a turkey hunter so I'm not much more help than that.

I think you should re-consider this turkey hunting business. Calling spring gobblers is some of the most exciting hunting that there is. Calling and hearing a boss gobbler thundering away just out of sight is about as good as it gets, the excitement is kind of like running bear hounds and archery hunting a big buck all wrapped up in one. Stand hunting for deer is often a loner thing, with a lot of solitude and waiting, whereas Spring Gobbler hunting is an action pastime that is often done with multiple people, and can be enjoyed just as much if you're a spectator or caller as when you are the designated shooter. A great pastime to look forward to during the offseason until the next deer season rolls around, going to camp and turkey hunting in the morning, then planting food plots in the afternoon is a spring tradition in Pennsylvania that rates right up there with hunting the rut the first week of November!

 

[Mennoniteman]

What’s your turkey population like now?

Turkeys do indeed love chufa, and it’s the only thing I plant for turkeys that deer don’t mess with. If you are positive you don’t want chufa, my follow up plan would be clover/grain mix (but deer would mess with it as well). Warm season options could include buckwheat, millet, sorghum, etc, but the deer would mess with that as well.

I suggest that we should consider having a turkey hunting category on the forum.

 

[cutman]

I suggest that we should consider having a turkey hunting category on the forum.

There’s already a bird hunting section. Why not use that?

 

[Chainsaw]

Be careful about catering to turkeys. Last year we had a turkey flock of 50 plus feeding daily in our four acre bean patch in November.They sure ate a lot of deer food. We do not intentionally encourage them but they like most of what we plant for the deer. I don't know how you could encourage them without planting. I do think that removing roost trees would discourage them pretty well so If I wanted the turkeys I definitely would leave roost trees standing.

 

[j-bird]

I think you should re-consider this turkey hunting business. Calling spring gobblers is some of the most exciting hunting that there is. Calling and hearing a boss gobbler thundering away just out of sight is about as good as it gets, the excitement is kind of like running bear hounds and archery hunting a big buck all wrapped up in one. Stand hunting for deer is often a loner thing, with a lot of solitude and waiting, whereas Spring Gobbler hunting is an action pastime that is often done with multiple people, and can be enjoyed just as much if you're a spectator or caller as when you are the designated shooter. A great pastime to look forward to during the offseason until the next deer season rolls around, going to camp and turkey hunting in the morning, then planting food plots in the afternoon is a spring tradition in Pennsylvania that rates right up there with hunting the rut the first week of November!

Turkeys in my area are feast or famine. I lack "big woods" in general (DNR considers only 24% of the land in my county as "deer habitat" and deer are far more adaptable than turkey) and they seem to cover a wide territory from what I have seen in my area. You either don't see any for months at a time or a flock of a dozen or more will nearly run you over! Every spring I have a tom that runs a ridge on my place and I can get him to gobble with my box call just having fun with him.....but he is an old bird and he knows better than to enter that open field. I typically am busy with habitat work and preparing for plot planting season and the like as well. I have enough bad habitats as it is....adding that one to the list just really isn't a priority for me. I am so unmotivated about the topic that I have considered leasing my place for the spring turkey hunt....but I am fearful that a lack of bird numbers will quickly frustrate a hunter. My son may give it a shot again this spring, but I just don't have the ground for the "run and gun" sort of turkey hunting that many prefer. My place you could easily sit for the entire 2 week season and not see a bird....or you could get that one freak moment and a dozen or more come working thru.... Seriously I would rather be doing habitat work or fishing in the spring.....