Turkey's sense of smell...

ole5beards · Post by **ole5beards** » July 17th, 2014, 1:42 pm

I know turkey's can smell, just not very good.But I'm curious to know just how good they smell. A few years back I was in a bow hunting club and it was small acerage. It was roughly 160 acres, and there were no hardwoods on the place, all pines and other scrub brush. Is say about 80% was a 7-8 year old cutover with the remaining pines probably 20-30 years old. It was an awesome spot for deer, plenty of thickets for cover and tons of bedding areas. The neighboring properties were very similar, there might of been some hardwoods in clumps but mostly mature pines. I set a camera up in the dead middle of a thicket. We cleared out a lil spot for the camera, however there were no roads just a foot trail. I put sweet feed and corn out in September and got some really good pictures of bucks. Well after checking it 3 or 4 times I went back with straight sweet feed. After a few days I had a few long beards on camera! I was really shocked just because of the thickness of this area. And when I say thick I mean thick!! Briars, sand spurs, we called this spot lil tex! So when these turkey's showed up it got me to thinking, the sweet feed was brown and it blended in perfectly with the ground floor(no feeder), It made me believe that the only way these turkey's would of found this was from the smell if the molasses in the sweet feed. That or maybe the saw the deer feeding and knew there was something there for them. I've hunted and killed turkey's in some thick spots, spots that most people would laugh at. I know they will adapt with their environment but this spot just didn't make since at all!! So I made up my mind that they found this feed based in the smell, and if they could smell that then their sense of smell might be better than what we think! Now with that said I don't take an precaution in scent cover when turkey hunting, and I never will, I think turkey's probably can smell us at times but they don't associate that smell with danger so it doesn't bother them. Just got me to thinking! Anyone else have any input or similar happenings?

Southern Sportsman · Post by **Southern Sportsman** » July 17th, 2014, 2:10 pm

Tom Kelly had a short piece in the most recent NWTF magazine about birds sense of smell. I think there has been some research strongly supporting it. I think they referenced buzzards' ability to find dead animals even when they are not visible from the air. I think birds can smell to locate food but I dont think they are wired to use it as a defense mechanism.

Post by **redarrow** » July 17th, 2014, 2:26 pm

Southern Sportsman wrote:Tom Kelly had a short piece in the most recent NWTF magazine about birds sense of smell. I think there has been some research strongly supporting it. I think they referenced buzzards' ability to find dead animals even when they are not visible from the air. I think birds can smell to locate food but I dont think they are wired to use it as a defense mechanism.

That sounds logical to me. Never really gave it much thought before.

ole5beards · Post by **ole5beards** » July 17th, 2014, 2:29 pm

Funny about the buzzards, I've always thought that!! You see them in the obvious kills like a road kill, but I've found deer laying belly down in a thick wooded area from buzzards and I think, how'd they find this. Usually by the time the buzzards get to them the coyotes have done their damage and some blood and white skin is showing so I know that helps them. But I've always thought they could smell dead prey also.

ICDEDTURKES · Post by **ICDEDTURKES** » July 17th, 2014, 2:30 pm

I've wondered this with geese.. Our geese can be headed west out of the sewer pond to feed in an oat field.. A farmer harvests his oats to east in which the geese would have no visual en route to their current feed and they will alot of times find the newly cut field in 1 or 2 days..

A few years back there was a product targeted towards a waterfowls sense of smell and food.. Do not think it went over very well and was viewed as gimmicky, but who knows their may be some validity to it.

As far as a turkeys sense of smell I have no clue if they have one at all, weaker than ours stronger than ours, but will hypothesize with you.. You can bait deer in a place with very few deer that frequent the area.. First couple a days a few deer find the bait.. Next day more deer show up, than more and more.. While the deer come and go they ****.. I do not believe the deer are actually smelling the shell corn or sugar beets from distance but instead smelling it in the **** leading to the baitpile.. So maybe the turkeys do not have a sense of smell good enough to smell the sweet feed from outside this in-penetrable jungle that you speak of, but instead maybe had enough sense of smell to smell the sweet in the crap leading back to the feedpile. Dunno

guesswho · Post by **guesswho** » July 17th, 2014, 2:42 pm

Their sense of smell is why I rub hen poop under each arm before I go turkey hunting, plus it keeps whoever is hunting with me from sitting right beside me. Most of the time.

Gobbler · Post by **Gobbler** » July 17th, 2014, 2:54 pm

Here is an Osceola turkey that smelled our cornbread cooking at camp. It walked right to the pan.

Grumpy · Post by **Grumpy** » July 17th, 2014, 3:46 pm

They sure smell when being good cooked.

Post by **redarrow** » July 17th, 2014, 4:22 pm

Gobbler wrote:Here is an Osceola turkey that smelled our cornbread cooking at camp. It walked right to the pan.

Gives a whole new meaning to butt ugly.What in tarnation is that thing ?

snapper1982 · Post by **snapper1982** » July 17th, 2014, 4:41 pm

They may have simply followed the foot trail(path of least resistance) to the new clearing and the feed.

ole5beards · Post by **ole5beards** » July 17th, 2014, 5:09 pm

Possible, but this trail was off a road and it went right into to the middle of the 7-8 year old pines. But it is very possible they just decided to walk down this trail.

Waddle Whacker · Post by **Waddle Whacker** » July 17th, 2014, 8:26 pm

Southern Sportsman wrote:I think birds can smell to locate food but I dont think they are wired to use it as a defense mechanism.

Me too. I have a hard time believing a buzzard can't smell.

Grumpy · Post by **Grumpy** » July 17th, 2014, 8:38 pm

If a buzzard was up real high they claim he can see quite a few square miles with pinpoint vision. I don't know what a good sense of smell would do for him with all the thermals and different wind directions up that high.

DC1. · Post by **DC1.** » July 17th, 2014, 8:51 pm

I had a old retired GW from Florida tell me that they had someone paint a gut pile on a sheet of plyboard and placed it in a field within twenty yards of the guts of a cow that they had put in the edge of the woods and covered with leaves.

HE SAID, the buzzards pecked all the paint off the plyboard and never touched the real thing.

blunderbuss · Post by **blunderbuss** » July 17th, 2014, 8:58 pm

Grumpy wrote:If a buzzard was up real high they claim he can see quite a few square miles with pinpoint vision. I don't know what a good sense of smell would do for him with all the thermals and different wind directions up that high.

I've always thought the same.

snapper1982 · Post by **snapper1982** » July 17th, 2014, 9:10 pm

We keep talking about buzzards and turkeys. It is possible for 1 bird to have a great sense of smell and another to not. How many birds have wings and feathers but can not fly? Each species has evolved with the senses that they need to survive. Maybe a turkey does use their sense of smell to help locate food. But then again maybe they do not use it to decifer anything at all. I personally think that they do not because their eye sight is so good. If some one wants to test it. Find an area that turkeys use everyday. Block off a small area with logs and rake back the leaves. Dump the feed and recover with the leaves and see how long it takes them to locate it.

dirtnap · Post by **dirtnap** » July 17th, 2014, 9:52 pm

The red headed buzzards can smell. The regular grey headed ones cannot. I went on a field trip with my son's class one time to a center for birds of prey and that is what the "biologist" that runs the place said. They had a bunch of both kinds there.

I neck shot a doe early one morning and she spewed blood something awful where she dropped. It just happened to be in front of my trail camera. I took a big pile of pine straw and covered the blood up completely so that you couldn't see any trace of it. I had pictures of red headed buzzards there within an hour. They can smell.

Turkeys cannot smell in my opinion.

TRKYHTR · Post by **TRKYHTR** » July 17th, 2014, 11:00 pm

I know a guy who was doing some trap and transfer on some turkeys. They were baiting the turkeys for a week or so to get them used to the area. They were going to get some bad weather and the place where they were doing the baiting was not a good site if there was going to be some snow. So they moved to a different bait site. That night it snowed. The turkeys had no idea where the new bait site was and the corn was under 6" of fresh snow. The turkeys went to the original bait site and found no corn and immediately went 200 yards to the new bait site. With no visual, when they got to the new bait site they started digging in the snow and finding the new corn. This could only have happened by their sense of smell. I believe they do smell but it is not used as a defense mechanism like a deer. They can also see pretty good at night.

drenalinld · Post by **drenalinld** » July 17th, 2014, 11:45 pm

I thought grey headed buzzards were immature red headed buzzards?

Reloader · Post by **Reloader** » July 17th, 2014, 11:46 pm

I agree with the seeing a bit at night. Been busted several times before light by the suckers when slipping quietly. Had a tom fly off the roost and strut before light in tx one time, that was cool. I've also seen many take flight in darkness. I don't think they can see like a deer at night, but believe they see a little better than us in darkness.

drenalinld · Post by **drenalinld** » July 17th, 2014, 11:49 pm

I am convinced turkeys use other animals to scout. For example, crows are flying EVERYWHERE with a very keen eye for food. They will find corn very quickly. If they cannot see it, they will see an animal that found it by smell eating and will investigate. When a crow finds a food source, they will CROW about it as loud as they can. Dinner bell for turkeys. You are welcome for the insight, please mail check....lol
Cannot prove this but it sure seems to explain it for me.

ole5beards · Post by **ole5beards** » July 17th, 2014, 11:59 pm

I agree with the crow theory. And I had suggested that the turkey's found the sweet feed from maybe watching the deer or other birds feed on it. This was the one rare occasion that makes me think they smelled it. You'd have to see the layout of the land and just how thick it was and you'd see why I think that way. There were turkey's in this area. I tried turkey hunting it a few mornings, knowing that if birds were there they'd be on the neighbors property, and I did hear birds but none close at all. Could of been a number of reasons why the were eating it, but in my opinion it was based on the strong molasses odor.

hawglips · Post by **hawglips** » July 18th, 2014, 7:16 am

I don't believe turkeys coud ever smell sweet feed from a distance.

TS · Post by TS » July 19th, 2014, 9:32 am

Buzzards can smell that is why they circle in the wind currents following it in to the smell of death. It has been proven that buzzards have a keen sense of smell as even in jungle canopy with no visible view from the air they will circle the currents and follow the sent right in to it.

KPcalls · Post by **KPcalls** » July 19th, 2014, 1:40 pm

drenalinld wrote:I thought grey headed buzzards were immature red headed buzzards?

The "red headed buzzards" are turkey vultures.
The gray headed one's are black buzzards.

I have always wondered about this. In my mind buzzards and vultures can definetly smell. Since they are birds like turkey's can all birds smell...? I never thought about crow's leading them to food but it makes perfect sense..do they have some sense of smell that helps them locate food..? it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Maybe we all should have loaded up on the Tink's turkey lure they sold years ago...

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