Getting Back Into Turkeys

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I just like turkeys. I have had several pairs, but got tired of feeding the coyotes since I didn't have a place to put them at night, plus I think one got 'tom-napped'.

My neighbor has an outbuilding he no longer uses. About 10'x12' made out of sawmill oak. Built some years ago, but still structually very sound. Paid him $100 for it. Recently built a new pump house about 4'x6' and spent about twice that for lumber, so I thought it was a good deal. Now all I have to do is to move it.

I have several 3"x6" bridge timbers and I figure I can jack it up about 3', back my equipment trailer under it, set it down, move it where in the yard I want it and then reverse the process.

At an annual consignment sale in a Mennonite community south of here, breeding age pairs sell for $60 to $75, so some sales may pay the feed bill.

Now, I need some advice:

The shed was built with fresh sawmill lumber so there are gaps between the boards up to about 3/4". We rarely get temperatures below the teens. Will this be a problem?

(No windows, but the gaps between boards let in plenty of sunlight and ventilation.)

Can the shed be configured just like a chicken coop with roosts and large nest boxes?

I plan to feed them a bit in the morning and then let them free-range in the yard during the day. In the evening they will get the bulk of their feed inside the coop. Any problems with this?

Would an outside run be recommended for the side of the shed where nestboxes are envisoned so poults can get outside to harden off? I would hope momma would take them in and out by herself.

How high off of the ground would be best? My turkeys use to like to sit under my truck during hot days and it would be cooler under the building.

I don't have chickens, so blackleg shouldn't be a problem.

Any other thoughts? I want to use the KISS technique.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), January 08, 2001

Answers

My turkeys liked to roost and nest up high, like a shelf with a big box on it about 5 feet high. They always went to the highest place in the barn at night to roost. I had wild turkeys, Bronze and the white ones. The coop seems warm enough, my barn was not draft free, it was an old Tobacco barn. The moma should bring the little ones back to the shed at night, mine always came in the barn, but the little ones had a time getting up high. Wider boards for roosts would allow the poults to get up there.

I'm going to get some too in the spring. A friend of mine here has lots of turkeys, and always has dozens of poults. He just takes them when they hatch and puts them in the garage under lights. He dosen't have them long, they are sold fast. His turkeys sit in cardboard boxes way up high in a big shed all summer long. When I go in there, all the girls peek out of their boxes to see what's up. If you can, put your new shed close to the outside lights.

He also has Canada Geese that stay there year round, and they nest in hiding places on the ground. I have been chased many a time by them, without any warning.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), January 08, 2001.


We had "wild " turkeys and they are great fun. Yes let them roost at least 5 ft. off the ground but ours would only sit on their eggs on the ground. In the wild thats what they do,so each spring have a place that is wild like.I use tree branches piled in a corner it makes her feel safe. We had to watch the # of Toms,even tho they would range all day fights would still break out,slaughtering to earlier is a waste.We lost our Tom to a ?,so we only have 1 hen now.I would like to know who has bought them from a hatchery and how did they work out. thank you

-- renee oneill{md.} (oneillsr@home.com), January 08, 2001.

Can anyone recommend a good book on raising turkeys on a small scale? Stromberg's has several, but only two which appear to be useful.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), January 08, 2001.

Renee, my wild ones would bury the eggs in the dirt, and they would get stepped on by you know who. Those wild girls were funny, I liked the others much better. I ordered 20 wild ones from Murry, and the first box arrived completely empty, either someone got them, or they were flying around the country in the plane loose. The second box came ok, they sent it for free. But they say the wild ones will leave, mine didn't, but I don't know. I ended up trading all the wild ones for something.

Ken, on the little poults. If you buy little ones to raise, they say to keep them in wire bottom cages for a while, because it's cleaner for them. They don't do good on poopie floors. That's what I did, untill they got big enough to just go out for themselves. And I had to put the medicine in the water for them, just in the beginning. Maybe someone else has had luck with them just on the shed floor.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), January 08, 2001.


Hi Ken, I, too, love turkeys. I have eleven now. I have found that my turkeys don't like to be cooped up at all. When I let them out of the coop the first time to free range, they never would go back inside. They fly up to the barn roof or position themselves on top of some vertically stacked lumber which is about barn roof height. They like to be very high up and some have stayed atop a 2x4 which we attached to a tree about 8 feet up, but if they all don't like it, not one will stay there. Also, we have had some days lately which have gotten down to two degrees at night and they are cold, but fine. They still roam around all day and come to the front of the house calling to us to feed them their sunflower seeds. They love them especially. Yes, we do spoil them. We also give them scratch and the smaller ones we give game bird feed which the big ones like also.

Our hens usually find themselves a spot in the woods at the edge of the fields to nest. They lay the eggs over a week or so and then sit on them until they hatch. They really camoflage themselves well and we have almost stepped on them before realizing they were there. We have lost some nesting hens to whatever, but mainly they survive and hatch their poults. That's when the trouble starts. I don't find them to be good mothers; they roam too much for the poults to keep up and don't stop to keep them warm as a chicken or guinea hen will do. This year we are planning on taking the poults and putting them under lights as we do with newly purchased chicks. Their survival rate will certainly go up then.

A book I have is "Raising Your Own Turkeys" by Leonard S. Mercia put out by Garden Way Publishing. It's pretty good. I also have looked on the Internet and found some very good turkey sites, but my old bookmarks got wiped out in a computer crash so I don't have them to give to you but I like www.dogpile.com as a search engine as it gives you so many choices.

Also, I raise my turkeys with chicken and have not had a health problem, but then again, they are all free range so they don't house together. I have some absolutely beautiful gray turkeys now and hope to have some poults in the spring. I can't wait.

If you need more information, please feel free to email me directly. Good luck.

Mary

-- Mary in East TN (barnwood@preferred.com), January 08, 2001.



Hi Ken, my experiences with turkeys mirrors mary's. Used to grab the poults and put them under a light because the mothers were such terrible mothers. We always had a lot around until the coyotees got so plentiful around here and crossed with some feral dogs. We can't free range anything around here. Oh, and mine once left the coop would never return even if I gave them NOTHING to eat except what was in the coop.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), January 08, 2001.

We haven't raised turkeys in quite a while, but there are getting to be a lot of wild ones around here (central NH). They stay in flocks, and seem to stay in the same area pretty much. The ones I've seen were either frequenting a dairy farm (they follow the cows around and clean up after them), or the people in the neighborhood were feeding them by putting out cracked corn and such. The flocks seem to be growing -- the one at the dairy must be up to forty birds now -- but I'm assuming that quite a few of the poults hatched must be lost to one thing or another, or there'd be thousands rather than only forty after the ten years we've been noticing them! Winters don't seem to bother them too much, as they are getting a lot of their food with little effort on their part from the farm or the people feeding them. And it can get quite a bit below zero here on occasion. So I doubt that a drafty barn would hurt them much. We'd like to find some rare breed turkeys to raise either this year or next (not the BB ones that can't breed naturally). There is a rare breed turkeys e- list, if you do a search, you can probably find it, or it is probably in the links at the Feathersite mentioned above.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), January 08, 2001.

Ken before you decide on a breed get the catalog from Sandhill Preservation.Their address is 1878 230th St....Calamus,Iowa,52729. They have several different breeds including some really rare ones. Narangansett and Sweet Grass are a couple.You might want to turn that love of turkeys into helping preserve one of the rarer breeds.

-- JT in nw Florida (gone2seed@hotmail.com), January 08, 2001.

I know of a fellow with minor breeds. Sells breeding pairs for $35.00. Black Spanish, bourbon red, Buffs and some others. Let me know ! I want to obtain a pair of Jersey Buffs.

-- jeff in PA (jmprint@epix.net), January 13, 2001.

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