Winter feeding

[eggshell]

I truly hope this topic can stay sane and not get into a pissing match of what is right or wrong, but here goes. Please set aside your feelings on hunting over feeders or baited sites.

First let me preface: It is illegal to hunt turkeys over bait in my state.

I am not talking about baiting to hunt, but supplemental winter feeding. How many on here feed in the off season on their leases or land? Do you think it helps hold turkeys there and makes them healthier. Or does it predispose them to predators  and disease. 

I ask this because I'm thinking of feeding the birds on our land for the next 6 weeks to help them through the winter and possibly hold the flock there. I have a friend who does this and it really seems to help keep birds on his place and he swears he sees bigger clutches in the summer. He stops 5 weeks before season, so they can hunt. Here, bait has to be removed at least 30 days before you can hunt that area. I did plow up a large food plot that is going in this spring, but my experience is those are depleted by the last two months of winter. So what are your thoughts and experiences.

[ddturkeyhunter]

We have food PLOTS-FIELDS for the deer and turkeys each year. And the same thing we do hunt by the fields for the deer, but a good portion is gone by hunting season. So yes it is a big benefit to us for hunting but a bigger benefit to the deer and animals eating it and becoming more stronger and Healthy. WE have a lot of small opening with clovers and stuff, but maybe about ten acres in beans per year on 86 acres, thats a lot of money spent each year just to let animals eat healthy. And the neighbor next to us has 160 acres and maybe 40 acres in beans or corn each year. During MN rifle season we had a Hen flock of turkey of 42 birds and the Long beard flock was 11. In winter a lot of the times the hens and jakes flock together, and the long beards will have there own flock also. And we may have around that same numbers every year, but come spring they break up and disperse. So we are helping everyone for miles around to have a healthy population of birds, and deer come spring. Food plots put fat on them to help pull them through the big snow storms. Now feeders if your state or area allows it and thats the way you want to KILL something go for it. Because what ever anyone else thinks, feeders are still helping all of use by feeding the rest of what they can"t KILL.

[ddturkeyhunter]

I do feed the turkey in back yard but don't hunting any where on home property.


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[ddturkeyhunter]

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[Greg Massey]

Turkeys are going to do what turkeys do and the closer to spring regardless these flocks will break up and yes you will probably hold some of the turkeys , but they will also scatter out among the surrounding farms and woods, when it's time for this separation of the flocks turkeys have a way of communicate this movement. So yes feeding will help to a point , but clover food plots will do you the most good ..  This separation has to do with the gobblers establishing pecking orders among the flocks ... I tell people learn the way turkeys act in communicating and establishing these spring pecking orders , will help you in being successful come spring ...this is just opinion ...  REGARDLESS birds are going to move after the breakup ... I will add this in all my years of turkey hunting before spring season open , I've been fortunate to witness the coming together of the gobblers and hens and then seeing the breakup of these birds going off in different directions. It's all about mother nature and their survival...

[ddturkeyhunter]

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[GobbleNut]

Great question for discussion.  My answer: "it depends".  ...It depends on what it is being done for and if the proper precautions are being taken to insure it is beneficial and not detrimental. 

I haven't kept up with the issue of supplemental feeding introducing elements (toxins, diseases, parasites, etc.) in the feed that result in die-offs, but I know that was a concern not too many years back.  If that is a problem, then that most definitely tilts the wheel against using commercially packaged feeds.  My impression as of now, however, is that has not been demonstrated to be a widespread problem,...at least where I am located.  It needs to be evaluated, though.

If the above is addressed, then the next question is whether it is essential to the survival of a given population under a given set of circumstances/conditions.  Obviously, this would come into play in areas where extreme environmental conditions,...the most obvious being deep, long-term snow and/or cold such that the ability of the population to get enough nutritional intake to offset those extremes could result in die-offs.  In those instances, supplemental feeding is no doubt beneficial,...if not essential,...to the survival of those populations.

As for feeder use, here's another take:  One phenomenon we are witnessing is that of more and more people buying rural land and building homes or vacation properties.  Many of those folks love having wildlife around their places,...and install feeders to hold them close by.  There is no real need for feeding other than concentrating that wildlife for their viewing.  That practice most definitely has a tendency to attract turkeys from outlying areas and concentrate them around these properties.  That may not be a bad thing for the turkeys, but it does create problems for turkey hunters who now have to focus their hunting in proximity to those places,...which can result in increased negative interactions between hunters and non-hunters.  I suspect this is going to be an increasing problem for us hunters as we go forward.

[Greg Massey]

Great question for discussion.  My answer: "it depends".  ...It depends on what it is being done for and if the proper precautions are being taken to insure it is beneficial and not detrimental. 

I haven't kept up with the issue of supplemental feeding introducing elements (toxins, diseases, parasites, etc.) in the feed that result in die-offs, but I know that was a concern not too many years back.  If that is a problem, then that most definitely tilts the wheel against using commercially packaged feeds.  My impression as of now, however, is that has not been demonstrated to be a widespread problem,...at least where I am located.  It needs to be evaluated, though.

If the above is addressed, then the next question is whether it is essential to the survival of a given population under a given set of circumstances/conditions.  Obviously, this would come into play in areas where extreme environmental conditions,...the most obvious being deep, long-term snow and/or cold such that the ability of the population to get enough nutritional intake to offset those extremes could result in die-offs.  In those instances, supplemental feeding is no doubt beneficial,...if not essential,...to the survival of those populations.

As for feeder use, here's another take:  One phenomenon we are witnessing is that of more and more people buying rural land and building homes or vacation properties.  Many of those folks love having wildlife around their places,...and install feeders to hold them close by.  There is no real need for feeding other than concentrating that wildlife for their viewing.  That practice most definitely has a tendency to attract turkeys from outlying areas and concentrate them around these properties.  That may not be a bad thing for the turkeys, but it does create problems for turkey hunters who now have to focus their hunting in proximity to those places,...which can result in increased negative interactions between hunters and non-hunters.  I suspect this is going to be an increasing problem for us hunters as we go forward.

Good post and i would add this along with my post also... on winter feeding ....

[randy6471]

 We have foodplots, but we also have been doing supplemental feeding for both deer and turkeys for many years.

I think it helps the overall health of the turkeys and it definitely holds turkey on the property. For example this year in early December there were around 15-20 turkeys in my standing corn plots every day and now even though the corn plots are getting pretty sparse, there are 40+ turkeys around every day with feeders running. As others have said, the flock will disperse with spring green up and as they establish their peeking order. I usually hold anywhere from 12-15 mature gobblers throughout the winter and end up with 6-8 by hunting season in May. They usually don't go too far and because most my neighbors don't turkey hunt themselves, but they do let me hunt their property, it's a huge win for me.
  As far as any benefit toward reproduction, I think that predation, weather and good/poor nesting habitat are much more important than anything else.

[Happy]

Years ago i used to feed turkeys in my back yard. Thought it was helping then hens and poults out during the summer and winter and well quite frankly I liked to watch them. After some observations I quit. Reason being in the summer the hawks figured it out and basically watched the feeder and started picking off poults at a pretty high rate. That and the turkeys just hung around and didn't travel much. Pretty much acted like welfare bums. I prefer my turkeys wild and self sufficient. I respect them and their wildness. I think they should stay that way.

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[eggshell]

Some good thoughts. I have access to tons of corn right from the farm bins and would probably just get some from my neighbor, so the corn would be coming from local source. The flock I was wanting to feed is on the family farm ground about 10 miles away in the hills and no crop ground around it.

Gobblenut, Funny you bring up the feeders for viewing. I had a super spot in Ky. for fall hunting. Someone bought part of the adjacent farm and put in a vacation/second home. They put up a feeder and hired a local to keep it full. Now I drive by and there may be 50 turkeys around their house. I go the two miles back to my hunting spot and you can't even find a sign of turkeys. It flat out ruined it for fall. Now come spring the birds are right back in the usual spots, but I do see and hear them on the feeder farm when before I didn't. I did talk to the new landowner one day when he was out on a sport ride on his ATV. I asked about turkey hunting and he said he would say no at that time but wasn't against it. He actually said drop back next spring and ask again. He chuckled and said he'd have to soften up the wife as she thought they were her pets.

[Hobbes]

Unless you're in a state with deep snow or ice, supplemental feeding serves no other purpose than concentrating turkeys on your own property.  It's not necessary for survival in most circumstances.

I don't think supplemental wildlife feeding is legal in MT, but I've seen ranchers/farmers do it with older hay to try and keep turkeys, elk, deer out of what they feed their cattle.  The turkeys are heck on haystacks digging for grain.  One biologist here in MT (one of the few that I've found to have any interest in turkeys) told me that part of the reason turkeys are not native to MT is because of the winter conditions combined with availability of food sources that we used to have but only have occasionally now.  These big cattle operations are what sustains some of these birds through bad winters.  Without them, they'd have no significant food source available.

[GobbleNut]

I don't think supplemental wildlife feeding is legal in MT, but I've seen ranchers/farmers do it with older hay to try and keep turkeys, elk, deer out of what they feed their cattle. 

On private property, any such law would be unenforceable.  Even though wildlife, whether on public or private land, is owned by the public, it would be impossible to prove that a feeder on private property was there for wildlife use.  All a landowner would have to do is say that the feeder was for some other purpose than feeding wildlife.  There is no way to prove otherwise.

Now, HUNTING over a feeder on private property, where illegal by law, is another story. However, anybody doing that would have to be caught in the act even to enforce that. 

Most certainly, however, laws can be put in place and enforced against people putting out feed of any sort on public land.  Again, they would have to be caught in the act of putting it out or hunting over it to have an enforceable case. 

[Chad]

Don't do it. A deer can die from eating a quart jar of corn in the winter through grain overload. Moldy damp corn can produce aflatoxin that can further weaken and kill turkeys. Increased predation from concentrating wildlife in the open, people wanting to hoard wildlife for themselves, disease transmission issues, the list goes on and on.

Haven't I read that you worked for your state's natural resource department?

[dirt road ninja]

Looks like it works in Texas.