Turkeys got killed

[MrDankYT]

i had 11 turkey, 1 tom, 3 hens, and 6 poults, now i wake up the mother turkey is dead on the grass feathers everywhere 2 other hens gone and 2 poults

this left me devestated and lost all hope in this hobby, theres a lady who was interested in the babies but now since 1/3 of them are dead and the mom too+2 other hens im gonna sell all of them, how much should i sell them for (when they're all grown up)

 

[R2elk]

i had 11 turkey, 1 tom, 3 hens, and 6 poults, now i wake up the mother turkey is dead on the grass feathers everywhere 2 other hens gone and 2 poults

this left me devastated and lost all hope in this hobby, there's a lady who was interested in the babies but now since 1/3 of them are dead and the mom too+2 other hens im gonna sell all of them, how much should i sell them for (when they're all grown up)

Sorry for your loss. If you are going to get rid of all of them, do it now. You cannot get enough more for them as adults to cover the cost of the feed they will go through.

What you will be able to sell them for will depend on your local market. The prices that turkeys bring differs everywhere.

 

[MrDankYT]

most people in my area sells them for 40$ tom 50$ hen grown up, how much for the babies would you think?, i believe they are around 2 months old

 

[TurkeyTimes]

So sorry for your loss. Predation is always difficult to deal with. I am able to get pretty high prices in my area. I charge $15 for day to week old +$1 per week old. So about 2 months old, would be around $23 at my prices. Good luck to you.

 

[MrDankYT]

first of all im planning on trapping the fox and shooting it, since we got chickens and quails too, i got the dead turkey and borrowed a trap from my neighbors and put it outside, not really hidden or anything, put some cat food too and when i woke up all that was in the cage were flies, any recomendations on what to put in there or just hide it better?

 

[TurkeyTimes]

Hide it better. Stinky meat would be good bait for a varmint.

 

[MillersFarm]

Foxes are Super smart, You're most likely not going to catch it no matter how well it's hidden, Your best bet is to leave the dead turkey out and wait with a rifle for the fox to come back to it's kill, And if it really is a fox then I can confidently say that it will come back. Once they find a good source of food they're going to stick around for a while.

 

[chickendreams24]

Ugh I hate fox they can be devestating to a flock. We've been fighting with one for two years now and I can tell you they are crafty awful creatures. I love wildlife and I've always loved foxes but ours is very bold and very smart. We haven't seen it at all this summer but I've found tracks a couple of times and we have had 6 or more birds go missing free ranging in the last month. I'm home during the day and see nothing. We've sat out and tried to call it in, nothing. There haven't even been any signs or feathers this year so far just missing birds 1-2 a day. Now I know from last year that they are probably teaching kits to hunt right now. I also know that they didn't take any birds from us between late last fall and maybe July/August. This can also be affected by the crops in the field around our house(which our birds do go out into to forage). This spring for instance was peas around our house(canning crop 300+ acres of peas) the chickens loved them and they eventually became too thick for the chickens to walk through even a fox couldn't get through them. The peas came out in July I believe it was. Might have been late June. Then the fields were open and the birds could see and forage in relative safety. The second crop was planted a couple weeks later and is sweet corn. The fox can move through this easily and the chickens have poor visibility in it.

As for pricing the turkeys I think it really depends on the breed.

Locally we have a woman that is trying to re-home most of her birds and she is asking 5$ for three week old poults. 15$ for 3-month olds and 30-50$ for adult breeders. Now these prices are low and we picked up 8 blue slate poults(5 $ each) but it really depends on how fast you want to move them. This woman we bought from still had her birds posted for around a month before they sold.

I would say a fair price for young birds is between 8-20$ depending on age. I think 20$ for 2 month olds is pretty steep.

Be aware if it's important to you that your birds not get eaten that they may be bought just for butchering if priced too low.