Gobbler Oddities

[knightrider]

killed one with a golf ball in its crawl i will never tell the property i was hunting NEXT to

[Georgia Longspur]

Killed "oddities" with multiple beards, no beard, no spurs and one with a golf ball size growth between the foot and spur on one leg, looked like may have taken a few pellets to the foot before.  All mature gobblers

[turkey_slayer]

I've shot 11 double-bearded toms, 1 triple-bearded, and a tom with no beard at all; 4 banded birds; a tom with a pair of 3" feathers growing straight up off the top of his head; 3 adult toms with no spurs; 1 tom with no tail feathers at all; a tom with sharply downward-curving spurs; 2 toms with several solid black wing primary feathers; a couple of toms with "club feet;" 1 tom with spurs hooking almost back to the legbone; 2 or 3 more toms with various diseases and/or tumors; and 2 toms that had impaled themselves on rather large branches (3/4"), with wounds that had already healed up around the sticks still imbedded in their flesh; and a couple toms with legs that had been broken earlier in their lives, but had totally healed before I killed them. I won't even mention all the toms that had already been shot by other hunters and still carried around pellets in their flesh, or were severely wounded by other turkeys.     

Wow you have killed a bunch with oddities so its hard to tell how many "normal" birds.  Will you adopt me 

[RutnNStrutn]

I was guiding my friend from WV on public land here in central Florida when we got this Osceola. His legs had white feathers. I emailed Lovett Williams the pic, and he said that he had never seen or heard of one like that.

[socalturkeyman]

RutnStrut THats a pretty cool looking bird.

[TrackeySauresRex]

RutnStrut THats a pretty cool looking bird.

[hookedspur]

Killed a bird with double spurs on both legs they both were 1 1/8" on one leg and on the other one was      1 3/16" and the other was about 5/8" he had a 10 3/4" beard and weighed 23 lbs

Nice bird

[harvester]

I killed a double beard that had the beard coming out at the top of the feather line next to the waddles. The beard was side by side, not one above the other traditionally.

[WNY Bowhunter]

I hunted a gobbler back in '07 that I called "No Fan," as he appeared to be missing all of his tail feathers.  As it turned out, he only had two primary tail feathers left sticking in his butt.  Strangely, this dude was missing all of his tail covert feathers, as well as all of the feathers going up his rump area too.  I have no idea how this could have happened to him, but he sure looked funny trying to strut out in the cornfield the night before I killed him...! I also shot a gobbler a few years ago that was completely missing his beard.  It looked like it was plucked right out of his breast...

[lightsoutcalls]

I killed a bird in MO that had an 11" beard with a rust colored line about 5" down the beard.  I suspected it was beard rot in process... This same bird had what looked like a jake fan, but with 6 of the main feathers taller than the others.  He was obviously not a jake from the beard and spurs that were right at 1". 
Last spring in KS, I shot a double bearded bird that had 1 toe about half missing on one foot.  His main beard was a 12" paintbrush and his secondary beard was a wavy 8 1/2" beard.  He is still in KS at the taxidermist.  He weighed in at 23.55 pounds.
I've got my heart set on taking a bird I saw in KS last spring after I awoke from dozing.  I killed one of his strutting buddies and used my last tag before I noticed this bird had feather tips that looked like a merriams.  This was near Tahlequah, OK, where they are only supposed to have easterns.  As Porky Pig once said, "Hey, thews something scwewy going on hewe".  I've never tried to hunt a particular bird, but I will be looking for that bird this spring.