This is our second year raising turkeys, but our first year free ranging them.
Last year we bought 3 bronze turkeys at family farm and home, raised them for the freezer.
With little to no prior knowledge of raising turkeys, things went very.
We started them is a large plastic tub in the house with a brooder lamp 3-4 weeks.
During that time I built a turkey coop from a crate, and located out of view from the house behind the bantam barn.
The pen area is 8X8 and the coop 3X5. The turkeys got pretty flighty, so..... I had to put two sheets of lath fencening over the top.
They looked very sad all cooped in, as they watched the chickens free range.
It was some what scary being in the pen with the turkeys as they got flighty.
We feed them chick starter feed for the first month (50 lbs bag). We then switched to meat builder feed (3-50 lbs bags)
The turkeys were all hens, 17-18-20 lbs. We brought them to a Amish farm in Fremont MI to be processed.
This year family farm and home had 4 turkeys left, and they told us they would not be getting any more. We really wanted three turkeys, but did not want to leave the one turkey behind, so we took all four. Two bronze, Two white, one of the bronze is a tom.
We got over our fear of them flying away. After eight weeks we started free ranging them with the rest of the flock (37 chickens)
The turkeys are so cool in the back yard, I'm glade we are free ranging them. I'm told they may not get as big, because they are not feeding as much and they get a lot exercise running around the yard.
Joe our dog, not sure what to make of them, but he is getting along just fine.
Last year we bought 3 bronze turkeys at family farm and home, raised them for the freezer.
With little to no prior knowledge of raising turkeys, things went very.
We started them is a large plastic tub in the house with a brooder lamp 3-4 weeks.
During that time I built a turkey coop from a crate, and located out of view from the house behind the bantam barn.
The pen area is 8X8 and the coop 3X5. The turkeys got pretty flighty, so..... I had to put two sheets of lath fencening over the top.
They looked very sad all cooped in, as they watched the chickens free range.
It was some what scary being in the pen with the turkeys as they got flighty.
We feed them chick starter feed for the first month (50 lbs bag). We then switched to meat builder feed (3-50 lbs bags)
The turkeys were all hens, 17-18-20 lbs. We brought them to a Amish farm in Fremont MI to be processed.
This year family farm and home had 4 turkeys left, and they told us they would not be getting any more. We really wanted three turkeys, but did not want to leave the one turkey behind, so we took all four. Two bronze, Two white, one of the bronze is a tom.
We got over our fear of them flying away. After eight weeks we started free ranging them with the rest of the flock (37 chickens)
The turkeys are so cool in the back yard, I'm glade we are free ranging them. I'm told they may not get as big, because they are not feeding as much and they get a lot exercise running around the yard.
Joe our dog, not sure what to make of them, but he is getting along just fine.
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