Wild Turkeys anyone?

[2LaneCruzer]

We live on a acreage that is not quite in town and not quite in the country. The last 7 or 8 years or so, we are visited regularly by wild turkeys...in fact, on one occasion I counted 64 in my front yard. They vary during the time of the year; right now we have several groups. One is a group of 6 bachelors that come every day, hang around the bird feeders and lounge around in the shade. Another is a pair of young toms...Pete and Repete my wife calls them...that drop by occasionally. The third group that shows up from time to time on no particular schedule it seems, is a group of 8 or 10 hens and 4 chicks, which are nearly grown now.

To me it is amazing; when I was growing up in Oklahoma, there were no wild turkeys at all that I know of; certainly not in my neck of the woods...no beaver either...and although where we lived was known for deer hunting, we rarely saw a deer. Now there are deer everywhere; I have seen them in our back yard and they leave their calling cards at night; in fact, browse on my Purple Hull peas. You better have your wits about you at night, or else you will end up hitting one. Both my wife and I have had such incidents.

But back to turkeys...anyone else have this experience? They are so tame, that they almost ignore you, and nonchalantly step out of the way when I am trying to mow. They leave their messages all over my drive way most every morning...they roost in the creek in back of my house and I can hear them in the evening calling. It's no wonder the early settlers dispatched them in record time; they are not very afraid of people, and certainly not afraid of the feral cats that hang around here. Now they will scatter when a dog comes on the scene, but they would be an easy target for a 12 gauge...but I consider them my pets and am glad to see them every day.

 

[chickenman]

my farm is situated like yours and I have wild turkeys, deer, rabbits and occasionally canada geese and all manner of small critters

i have occasionally had to drive mt tractor around turtles partying

 

[sam5570]

2lane we have a lot of wild turkeys but they are just that wild can't get close to them at all.

 

[Circle W]

What part of Oklahoma are you in? The turkeys do seem to be getting thicker where I am at (about 30 minutes east of Stillwater). On a deer hunting trip out to the Black Kettle national grassland out north and west of Weatherford, I counted a flock of nearly 400 birds. Truly an amazing sight! My boss keeps telling me of the turkeys he has coming up to his yard and he said the same thing, they ignore the cats and could seem to care less about people. He also lives on the edge of town, so maybe they are just getting acclimated to seeing people often. Kinda like what I consider "city squirrels" they don't run until you step on em! Do you live in town?

 

[Sysop]

Most everything I see on my land has little fear of man except the groundhogs and racoons. I recently was mowing the apple orchard and deer came into the orchard (as they do every evening) to get some apples that'd fell. I'd made several passes by the tree they were under, then on one of my passes I stopped behind the barn to grab my camera. Made another pass up by them while filming a short video but got farther up the hill on that pass which put me between them and the woods; that time they got a little spooked and started away from the orchard. Each time I'd made a pass through there I was getting within 25 feet of them, half dozen passes and they paid no attention to me at all. They've also came onto the back porch of the big house between the two houses. Our wild turkeys are the same way.

 

[dave1949]

I see turkeys often but never in large numbers on our lot. State-wide they are so numerous, and becoming pests to farmers, that they increased the turkey hunt.

There were no more turkeys here post-settlement days. Then the DNR repopulated them from Vermont and, IIRC New York. Took a couple tries, but it was a huge success.

 

[sseelhoff]

We have wild turkeys, but they don't get close to the house. We also have deer and rabbits. Rabbits everywhere.

Funny story about the deer. I was working the pasture putting up a new fence line. I caught some movement out of my peripheral vision. I turned and there was a deer standing next to me. Wearing a pink dog collar. It let me pet it. It stood there and watched me work for a while, then trotted over to the fence, slipped over and ran off.

I told my wife about the encounter. She thought I was suffering from heat stroke. Two days later, she was telling stories on me to the neighbor. The neighbor saw the deer as well and verified my story. Turns out a couple down the road found the deer as a fawn, and it is now partially domesticated.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

What part of Oklahoma are you in? The turkeys do seem to be getting thicker where I am at (about 30 minutes east of Stillwater). On a deer hunting trip out to the Black Kettle national grassland out north and west of Weatherford, I counted a flock of nearly 400 birds. Truly an amazing sight! My boss keeps telling me of the turkeys he has coming up to his yard and he said the same thing, they ignore the cats and could seem to care less about people. He also lives on the edge of town, so maybe they are just getting acclimated to seeing people often. Kinda like what I consider "city squirrels" they don't run until you step on em! Do you live in town?

I'm centrally located, North of OKC; not in town, but in an area building up fast. I've hunted Black Kettle maybe 30 years ago; no turkey there then, and mighty few quail.

 

[GGB]

Fun stories to read-we have wild turkeys roosting in the trees on the edge of our property, but they rarely get too close due to our dog. We also get deer at our ponds on occasion, but there is so much cover for the turkey, deer and other critters that they don't have to venture out in the open near the house.

That hasn't stopped me from trying to call the turkeys up while I'm sitting on the deck with a cup of coffee in the mornings during turkey season, without luck thus far. At least around here, they are pretty cagey. Still a lot of fun to try........

 

[creekbend]

We have WILD turkeys. We are situated between parcels of the NC Gamelands -- Caswell Game Land