Heat

[Gobble Doc]

Is the hot weather hard on the turkey popuation?  Or do they generally weather it pretty well? 

[dontgetcrabs]

You tell us, you are the gobble doc.   

[KFhunter]

they love it

the grass hoppers are coming on now, huge protien source for em 

[Gobble Doc]

Gobble doc doesn't have a clue!  I proved that by getting blanked this spring.

[turkeydancer]

They know where it's shady and cool ... I've hunted early fall with it being in the nineties and they handle it a lot better than I do ....

[Tom Tamer]

They know where it's shady and cool ... I've hunted early fall with it being in the nineties and they handle it a lot better than I do ....

Remember that a couple years back, we were banging are brains trying to find where they were. And we saw that tom laying under that small pine limb? They handle it pretty well I think.

[turkeydancer]

Yep ... they are very resilent critters for sure ... seen them in 14" of snow and 10 degrees too ... of course they'ld shake a leg every once  in a while to get the snow off .... 

[CedarPants]

Several years ago it was unseasonably hot for a good stretch toward the end of the spring season.  The hoppers weren't out yet and I wasn't seeing much of anything in the open fields during the day, so I decided to sit near a fairly heavily wooded creek one afternoon for a while.  i was there for maybe 10 minutes when a group of hens showed up, feeding their way through the creek.  At the rear was a nice tom, which I harvested.

Upon inspection of what he had been eating, I found his crop full of snails, a couple small frogs, and a salamander.

I'm convinced these things can adapt to anything

[NRA4LIFE]

I used to do the same thing, I always wanted to know what they were eating and when.  And I too have found them to eat almost anything.  The most interesting was a Tom I killed in the fall in Missouri.  It's crop was packed solid with walking sticks.  I think they are immune to almost any weather.

[Gobble Doc]

Glad to hear that they are heat resistant.  I was thinking about our chickens and they seem to quit laying eggs when it gets too hot which made me wonder if turkey also exhibit some kind of heat stress. 

[Yelper Guy]

Gobble Doc, don't give up. It took us 4 spring hunts to seal the deal.
This spring was truly hunting for us, not just filling a tag like some of the previous years.

[Gobble Doc]

Yelper Guy,

Thanks.  I've gotten spring birds before, just not this year.  Hopefully my bow skills might be improved by the fall hunt. 

[BOWHUNTER45]

You tell us, you are the gobble doc.   

they be fine as long as they have water 

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

We have a auto waterter near the chicken coop and the turkeys come by all the time to have a drink with the chickens. They know where all the goodies are!

[turkeydancer]

My first turkey harvested was just above some farms that were along the LPO river. When I opened the crop to see what he had been eating I was expecting to see grains and bugs, but I was shocked to see it full of hard corn he had been "stealing" from the chickens down at the farms. I'm glad I took that 20 lb thief out at 7 yards, and made life better for the farmers chickens .....