Texas freeze

[OJR]

I don't know if this has been discussed, if it has I couldn't find it. Does anyone know if the bad freeze in February do harm to the Texas turkey population?
Heading that way later this month.

[ChesterCopperpot]

Turkeys are pretty hardy critters so I imagine they did fine. One thing it did do is wipe out herds of exotics on a lot of those ranches.


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[Yelper]

They are doing well on the place I hunt, no sign of any being lost to the weather.

[wvmntnhick]

If they can survive back home, I doubt that little freeze in Texas was enough to kill them off. They may not have been thrilled about it but I'm sure they're fine.


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[OJR]

I saw where there were losses of up to 60% of exotic herds. That's what got me to thinking. I have hunted turkeys in the snow in Wyoming and Montana and it didn't seem to matter to them. But those Texas turkeys are spoiled!

Thanks for the replies guy's.

[dzsmith]

kind of off topic but I was thinking about this recently in Mississippi. I do wonder what birds do when such a thing as a sever multi day freeze happens. Where I live the ground was completely under ice for several days. Do birds hunker down, do they stay moving. Id love to know more about what birds do. I do know this, a guy I know from the UP of Michigan said he walked upon frozen dead birds that literally could not survive sever long term freezes up there. Now that borderline Canada I know so its totally different , but it does get a man to thinking what they do to survive here when something like this happens. I saw lots of song birds out and about in the ice during the freeze. They seemed to love it lol

[Txag12]

No issue. Have pics from landowners at two properties I hunt where they don't seem impacted at all and strutting activity picking up.

[Yelper]

This was taken during the freeze couple weeks ago.

[bbcoach]

Personally I can't see any issues from a few days of freezing temps and ice in Texas.  Was there some stress?  SOME but not to the point that it should adversely effect turkey numbers.  Turkeys are hardy and adapt to changing weather all the time.  The birds weren't nesting when the weather came through so the hatch shouldn't have been effected either.  Here's something to think about, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and Michigan normally see temps in the minus zeros and 3 feet of snow and the turkeys continue to thrive so Texas Rios should be just fine.

[turkeygod4]

I can assure you that they are doing just fine. Already starting to do their thang. However I've seen a few more mature birds than usual with broken beards. If anything is going to kill them off it's the summer heat and lack of rainfall.

[Brs2427]

That's a really cool shot with the ice hanging off their beards