What does a turkey eat?

snakeskinner

Twelve Pointer
Always wondered so when I shot my first last year I checked. This one had been feeding in a field for a while.
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turkeyfoot

Old Mossy Horns
Ain't much they won't they are pretty opportunistic eaters and very resilient in finding what is available grasses, bugs, fruit, seed/grain, worms. salamanders grubs, nuts including acorns hickory or beech and of course some gravel
 

wolfpacker

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
That one was stuffed. The one I killed last year had been eating that annual bluegrass that comes up in the fields. Maybe we will see who comes up with the strangest thing they find in a turkey's crop this season.
 

Familyman

Twelve Pointer
The first turkey I ever killed back in 1979 had 430+ soybeans in its crop! I wish I had taken a picture of it. I set up on him on the roost, but after flying down he went away from me and out into a field. I stayed back 50 yards inside the woods and called occasionally and after what seemed like a long while he finally came back into the woods and I was able to kill him. I don't know how long he stayed out in the field....but it was at least as long as it would take a gobbler to find and pick up 430+ soybeans!
 

nchawkeye

Old Mossy Horns
A few years back my hunting buddy and I were hunting in Gates County, after a few mornings we figured out they were in fields that had been sprayed with Roundup the previous month...We both killed one and checked what they had been eating...The dang things were full of chick weed...Funny thing was, we had been setting up over our food plots of clover and not seeing squat...
 

30/06

Twelve Pointer
They also pick through horse turds and eat pass-thru grain and bugs under cow pies, YUM!
 
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