Winter flock questions

[g8rvet]

What do you consider feeding/baiting Silvestris?   Just curious.  You are always gruff and state your opinion succinctly, but you are a good voice for the traditional way.  Do you consider managing your property for wildlife to be baiting?  What about food plots for all wildlife?  What about opening dense woods for better habitat-I am thinking like strutting areas/insect food source, etc?   I am genuinely curious.  I won't change my plans for my property based on your answers or anything, just wonder how you look at it.  Even if my little property is over run with birds, I will never shoot one at my home place, I like the chase too much.  I am just wondering how you see it.  I am managing for dove and deer (I don't deer hunt) but my 86 year old dad and the grandkids are welcome to take deer. I have started seeing some turkeys lately as well.

[RutnNStrutn]

Wildlife of any species do not benefit from feeding/baiting, or do I repeat myself.

Yes. You are repeating yourself.
Yeah, I get it. I've read your posts and comments ad nauseam. You are against everything that isn't done exactly the way you do it.

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[randy6471]

  What you're seeing is pretty common in my area and it sounds like you have everything it takes to hold turkeys most of the year as far as habitat, but maybe not enough or the right mix of food in the winter

  Right now I have 35-40 hens/jakes and 12-15 long beards at my place. Sometime in mid-april they will do exactly what Greg M. described and 75% of these turkey will move off to neighboring properties. Usually after that happens, I'll be left with 8-12 hens, a few jakes and 4 or 5 longbeards that are split up into 2 small flocks. We will shoot a couple of the longbeards, the hens will nest and raise their poults through summer/early fall and next Nov-Dec other turkeys will start to pile into the area.

  I think it's food, because years ago I saw the same thing at my place as you currently see at yours. I usually had a good mast crop, plus I did supplimental feeding, but it didn't matter how much mast there was or how much feed I put out....I still couldn't hold turkeys through the winter.
  About 20 years ago I started getting into foodplots for deer and as I expanded to planting more food and different types of food, that's when I began to hold turkeys all winter. I currently have standing corn with lots of ears left, some beans and a good amount grains/clover. The turkeys have spent the last couple months primarily working on the mast crop from last fall and now that we have snow/ice, they spend most days in and around my food plots.

  I have a hunting buddy that lives about 3 miles away with a similar set up as far as foodplots and we see the exact same thing play out at his place every year. Right now he has tons of food available and he has somewhere around 60-70 turkeys living there. In about 2 months that will all change.

  It's nice to have them on your property year round, but having them there in the spring is what really matters....plus it sometimes costs whole lot less $$$! 

[TrackeySauresRex]

A buddy of mine has the same issue in the mountains of Pa. Then they show up in the later part of the spring. That corn thing is interesting though. In Nj people like to put it down, I hope that's not what is hurting our flocks.

[RutnNStrutn]

1. yes and no, a few may have made it over there, I doubt many survived.
,
2.There was/is pressure.

3.originals, no------new ones, no.
So, no

What you have a chupacabra thats moved in.

I've seen it happen, usually on public ground the day after opening day

Well, you were wrong. Surprise!!!!! NOT!!!
The turkeys have returned, just as I surmised that they would.

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[ddturkeyhunter]

That was a interesting thing about the corn and mold. This winter the snow got deep at my place in MN again, when that happen then the turkeys do come in to my place. They come in to eat the seed off the sumac bushes and then check out all my bird feeders. I did find out that if you have Black Sunflower seeds on the ground and hole corn kernels they will eat ALL the sunflower seeds before they eat the corn. So now learning about the maybe possibility of mold on any corn, I will no longer bother putting any of that out just black sunflower seeds.

[RutnNStrutn]

That was a interesting thing about the corn and mold.
I did find out that if you have Black Sunflower seeds on the ground and hole corn kernels they will eat ALL the sunflower seeds before they eat the corn.

Corn is not an issue right now. I had to stop feeding 10 days before the season, and there is no corn now.
Interesting about the sunflower seeds though.


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[Paulmyr]

That was a interesting thing about the corn and mold.
I did find out that if you have Black Sunflower seeds on the ground and hole corn kernels they will eat ALL the sunflower seeds before they eat the corn.

Corn is not an issue right now. I had to stop feeding 10 days before the season, and there is no corn now.
Interesting about the sunflower seeds though.


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We had some cracked corn out this winter in North central Mn. There were 3 hens that would show up sporadically. When they did, they showed a preference for the cracked corn before they hit the bird feeder for some sunflower seed. When I say hit the feeders I'm pretty sure I mean that literally. I filled it up one mourning before they showed. When they left it was almost empty. Although I didn't actually see it, I'm pretty sure they were pecking the feeder to shake the seed out.The guy up the road had about 20 hitting his corn.