New to this turkey thing

Starkmojo

In the Brooder
5 Years
Oct 9, 2014
18
0
22
So on a whim I bought a Tom and Hen Nar.... I figured I was good with chickens, and a turkey is just a big chicken, right?

Well all of you who have turkeys can stop laughing now.

My dog also knows turkeys are not chickens. She wont chase a chicken, but she sure wanted to kill the Tom. Which is sad because he is such a sweet boy. After my dog chased him he hid in my house on my daughters bed... so now he and his GF live in an enclosed pen (really I should enclose the dog.) and every time I let them out when the dog is inside they just sit on my back porch like I should let them in.. or he follows me arouund (then hen loves to run off and eat bugs, but the Tom is like a two legged dog).

Anyway, now the hen is laying eggs in a nest (she was born in Feb, which makes her 5 mos old.) she has sat on the nest a few times but doesnt appear to be broody yet. How can I tell she is going broody? When should I give up and toss the eggs? Right now I put them in a house at night. should I stop putting her in and let her try and set?

Also I have noticed the turkeys dont doop in their house like chickens, they do a bit but they always come out and have a huge poop first thing in the morning, and their is only a little scat in the house. Is that unusual?

Also I have this other concern. Tom is already kinda lonely. I worry what will happen to him if I have to seperate him from her if she sets. should I get another turkey and put him in a seperate pasture. He has good genes (big, thrifty, attentive to his hen and gentle.) so I dont really want to eat him now, but maybe thats the fairest way to treat him.

Anyone with advice feel free to share.
 
My hens don't usually become really broody until their second year, when they're ready to set you have to pry them off the nest, and they will attack, I use a walking stick to move them aside, and for protection, yeah, that's a broody turkey. Your best bet if you want more is to buy a cheap incubator, or find a broody hen, just don't let the chicken raise them. Your Tom might look lonely, but that's kinda what toms do all day, just wandering around like they are lost. Get more birds and he will have more to do like fighting and mating. I had one of my dogs kill one of my turkeys, so watch that dog, and you don't need to separate him from her, the Tom won't usually bother with any young poults. Turkeys are certainly not like chickens. And turkeys usually poop less often but more of it.
 
i think you can teach your dog that the turkey is family and not to be eaten if you explain that to your dog and work with him. our dogs know and i didnt have to do much of anything but tell them. maybe if you brought the turkey in the house with you so your dog would know he was family too? they need to be in a small space so your dog cant chase him so they have time to get used to each other. old hen, that is the way our turkey wanders around too, like he is lost in space somewhere with a blank look in his eyes. lol
 
I agree, said dog has been taught for the most part to leave poultry alone, but she is young and has a high prey drive, putting her in a small space with a turkey would only hasten the turkeys demise, because she can't help it, all my other 5 dogs would be fine, point is to know your dogs, and protect your poultry from them the best you can, this dog, no matter how much I explain, will always want to chase and kill, it's up to me to always supervise, funny though, because I have tried the explaining, usually included some cuss words, but as I said she is young
 
Be careful about the dog chasing the turkeys. I had a lovely trio of turkeys and between my younger dog chasing, my rooster thumping his back, and a coyote coming in the middle of the day and taking one of his hen's, the Tom packed up the remaining hen , flew over the fence, and headed down the road. Poor guy. I didn't really blame him.
My younger dog now has a shock collar, the rooster is still head of his household, and my great turkey experiment, now failed, is over. (For now, anyway)
 
Haha, I had to laugh because we got our first turkeys back in February and I had the same thought process. How hard could they be?

Our turkeys are a year old and the hens went broody as soon as it warmed up this spring. None of the first nest ever developed, though they sat for almost six weeks before I took the eggs from them. I don't think the tom was doing his job yet. They immediately started making another nest and 15 of 19 eggs hatched. I ended up having to finish them in an incubator (that's a long story- but it wasn't their fault). Every time they sit on a nest, the tom guards them. He's a big baby and runs away when I come near but otherwise he just marches back and forth and around them, watching over them.
 
My current quandary is what to do with the eggs she is already laying. I hate waste and if she isn't going to set I would rather eat them. But at what I paid for the pair, I will never make my money back in turkey eggs! I was going to raise them in my current goat yard once the goats get rid of the blackberries.
 
People might cringe, but I crack them on a post and toss them on the ground, the turkey eat them and fight over them, never ate them myself, I'm sure you can, I don't because I have a lot of chicken eggs. You could start incubating them and have lots of turkeys to eat, but it cost a bit to feed growing turkey.
 
People might cringe, but I crack them on a post and toss them on the ground, the turkey eat them and fight over them, never ate them myself, I'm sure you can, I don't because I have a lot of chicken eggs. You could start incubating them and have lots of turkeys to eat, but it cost a bit to feed growing turkey.

People would cringe because what you are doing is a great method to use if you want to teach turkeys to eat their own eggs.

Those that hard boil the eggs and mash them up before feeding them back to the poultry don't end up teaching their poultry to become egg eaters.

Turkey eggs are delicious and I personally know a number of people who greatly prefer turkey eggs over chicken eggs. It is my experience that turkey eggs are much better for baking than chicken eggs are.
 
My turkeys have never eaten their own eggs, not once, until I crack them for them, so this is what I do, I also do it with my duck eggs and dirty chicken eggs, not saying you should do it, but this is my experience, and I don't have trouble with it, of course my birds are allowed to forage and do natural things, so they aren't bored or have a need to develop habits that are from improper confinement. It's not natural for birds to crack open and eat their own egg, but if one gets cracked it's fair game
 

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