Keeping turkey off the roof

[Weavus]

We have a male Rio Grande approx. 1.5 years old, and in the last few months we found a female for him (she's currently about 7 months old). Last year during the cold weather, our male roosted on our garage roof, which makes my husband very unhappy (lots of poop to scrape off). When the weather got warmer, he started roosting in a tree near our chicken coop. When we brought home Little Girl, she roosted in the tree right next to him, and we were hoping that's where they would choose to stay. But as soon as the (slightly) cooler weather hit this week, both of them jumped up on to the garage roof again. We have tried shooing them off, spraying them with the hose, everything. Would those bird spikes that I've seen work? What's a good way to get them to stick to the trees? We have hundreds of trees of every size for them to choose from.

Sorry if I shouldn't start a new thread - I'm new

 

[broody rooster]

maybe the s[ikes people put on there roofs to keep pigeons off their houses would discourage them from doing so ? is there a coop of some sort for them to use or hide from the elements ?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Mine would roost all over as well, but we round them up and put them in their pen. It can be hard to change a turkeys mind.

 

[Weavus]

We've never had a coop or pen for them, when our male was smaller he would roost with the chickens in their coop, but as he got bigger he just roosted nearby and seemed happy with that. It doesn't really get cold here. I'll try the spikes, hopefully that will help!

 

[Weavus]

Well, I work evening so I told my husband just to stand outside by the garage around turkey-bedtime, and shoo them away and eventually they'd get the hint and go roost in a tree. Now he's even madder, because they decided to roost on top of the house instead. And that's way too high for us to try to get them down.
I wouldn't really care about them sleeping on the roof, or on the garage. But when the turkey slept there last year, he left a HUGE mound of poop, and my husband is worried it will eventually damage the shingles.

 

[broody rooster]

i can see how that would be a problem especially with owls if you have any near by

 

[ivan3]

Oh, brother. You all might just have to put up with the least noxious option for the winter (on the garage). If you plan on keeping them it would probably cost your husband less irritation to go ahead and build them a shed/covered run. Next Spring your Little Girl will be on the ground and off to who-knows-where to build a nest and having some predator proof location is essential. Once she's down, the tom will be down and they can be penned up. You can try clipping the flight feathers on one wing. However, as they're not penned up, the clipping will interfere with avoiding predators. We're in the woods and we trained our leggy/wingy poults - took about a month of such things as shooting a leader over the branch they were on with a bow and arrow and then running a line with a half crushed gallon water bottle onto branch, placing a spotlight on ground so they'd have somewhere to land, and then dragging the "jug" right into their legs; pick them up "out of the landing zone" and carry them off to the shed. They actually CAN learn. We are now in our 10th year with our turks and the adult hens teach their poults (haven't had a turkey in the trees or on the roof in a very long time - and only then because they were spooked by a coyote). No cover over their run - they return to their shed on their own. Best of luck! (example):

 

[Weavus]

Well, we never thought of it before, but someone suggested clipping their wings. So we're going to give that a try tomorrow. My dad clips his chickens wings, and I've done it for birds before when I worked in a pet shop. Hopefully that will help.