What Do Wild Turkeys Eat?

Craw contents of the southern Eastern gobbler, tagged on March 26th and pictured here, included nearly a hundred "roly polys" (pill bugs), a handful of water oak acorns, grass and various insects and larvae.

Location: Turkeys thrive in a diversity of habitats. Turkeys living in forested areas consume more nuts, fruits and buds. Turkeys found in agricultural regions take advantage of available grains and crops. Desert-country birds might eat reptiles, cacti and seeds, while swampland turkeys utilize nuts, buds, plants, frogs, salamanders, worms and snails.

Season: At spring green-up turkeys typically forage on leftover nuts, tender plant shoots, grass, leaves and buds. In summer, insects, berries and small reptiles are abundant. Fruits, nuts, seeds and grains provide nutrition in fall and winter. When snow cover or ice prevents ground foraging, turkeys can survive by eating white pine and hemlock needles and buds; evergreen ferns, lichens, moss, and buds and stems of sugar maple, beech and hop-hornbeam trees.

Age: During their first summer, turkey poults spend about 90% of their day feeding. Hens lead their broods to habitat that provides abundant insects, like grasshoppers and beetles. These provide protein for the young birds’ development. By fall, young turkeys will have sampled their way to a varied diet that includes various plant materials. Adult turkeys feed mostly on plant matter but will eat anything that’s in season and available.

Turkeys are opportunistic and spend much of their day scratching in leaf litter, chasing insects, nipping plant parts, and stripping seeds. Feeding commences shortly after fly-down with pauses throughout the day to loaf, digest, dust and preen. Major feeding times occur for several hours in the morning and again several hours before fly-up time.

The exception is hens incubating eggs, which all but fast for about a month, taking only short breaks to feed and water. When hungry poults or young turkeys are present, feeding occurs throughout the day. During spring mating season, gobblers feed sporadically, since most of their efforts are focused on mating, displaying and defending their harems of hens.

Depending on the subspecies and geographical location, turkeys consume a wide variety of foods, but they have some favorites. The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Wildlife Habitat Council’s Fish and Wildlife Habitat Management Leaflet includes a breakdown of key preferred turkey food sources by region and subspecies:

Eastern Wild Turkey

• Insects, snails, and salamanders
• Acorns of red, white, chestnut and black oaks, beech nuts
• Black cherry, hackberry, wild grape and spicebush
• Seeds of white ash, ironwood, water beech, hawthorn, witch hazel, flowering dogwood
• Seeds of native grasses and sedges
• Evergreen ferns, winter buds of hemlock and hardwoods, fronds of sensitive ferns, burdock

Florida Wild Turkey (Osceola)

• Live-oak acorns, black gum fruits, berries of cabbage palm, pine seeds
• Panic grasses, carpet grass, chufa
• Dragonflies, grasshoppers, caterpillars, snails

Rio Grande Wild Turkey

• Acorns, skunkberry, doveweed, hackberry, cedar elm, pecan, prickly pear cactus
• Paspalum and other grasses
• Insects and other invertebrates

Merriam’s Wild Turkey

• Grasses, forbs, alfalfa, sweet clover, sunflowers, vetch
• Fruits and seeds of Ponderosa pine, oaks, manzanita, skunkbush, sedges, oats
• Insects and other invertebrates

Gould’s Wild Turkey

• Acorns, pinon nuts, juniper berries, fruits of manzanita, onion, skunkbush, wild grapes, mustard forbs and grasses
• Insects and other invertebrates

Just about anything they can reach and shove past their beaks, including:

Ticks - A good reason to love wild turkeys is they will nab ticks hanging on foliage.

Roly polys - As kids we played with these cool little crustaceans that roll into a ball when touched. The author photographed craw contents of an Alabama gobbler that included nearly a hundred.

Small snakes, mice and moles - Young turkeys seeking nutritious protein will catch and eat small mammals and reptiles.

Cow pies – Cattle-country turkey hunters know flocks cruise pastures flipping dried cow pies for undigested grains, grubs and beetles. Dark, manure-stained beaks indicate turkeys are spending time poking around in cow poo.

Elevated food bar – When turkeys hang up on the morning roost, they may be feeding on tender tree buds. If other foods are scarce they often return to the trees for short periods during the day, too.

Aerial berry picking – This unique behavior was observed during a very cold winter when food was scarce. Several turkeys gathered daily at holly trees. When berries within reach were gone, a tom repeatedly launched upward to pluck berries.

Spent shotgun shell – Ironically, a tom ate a spent shell and later was bagged with a load of shot from one.

Plastic frog bass lure – This account is hearsay but believable. What turkey wouldn’t nab a frog that didn’t jump away?

The southern Eastern gobbler filled its crop with mostly blackberries and grass seed heads.

The next time you bag a bird, take time to open its craw (crop), and examine the contents. Dead bugs, buds or some nuts may help you locate and tag another gobbler.

More Realtree turkey hunting.