A century of Turkey talk 2000-2100.

[OneMountainAcres]

Do poults require a higher protein feed or can they be fed non-medicated chick starter? I'm assuming they pretty much brood the same as chickens and everything else?

They are supposed to be started on 28% game bird starter. I personally start mine on a mixture of game bird starter and 18% chick grower. It comes out to around 21%. It's not ideal for poults but works great for me since I raise poults and chicks together. Our Christmas turkey this year was raised this way and dressed out at 16 lbs. Not too bad for an 8 month old heritage breed, in my opinion anyway.

 

[duluthralphie]

Do poults require a higher protein feed or can they be fed non-medicated chick starter? I'm assuming they pretty much brood the same as chickens and everything else?

Poults need Game feed (higher protein) to develop properly, they may look fine on the outside but I have read too low of protein can cause reproductive and internal problems in later life.

It is not that much more money for Game Feed at Marties, I feed it to the show birds, the turkeys and any bird that is lucky enough to be raised with either of those two. It does not hurt the chicks to get the extra protein that I have found.




I am having a problem with Snitch. I had thought she wanted to be management the way she brings everything the other turkeys are doing wrong. When I was checking the breeding pens she followed me and was complaining loudly. I thought she was tattling on the turkeys on the peak of one of my sheds. (It was really high and she might be afraid of heights).

She followed me everywhere. When I filled the layers/turkey waterer she was happy. It had went dry this morning. Apparently she is not management just a complainer!

 

[Molpet]

Poults need Game feed (higher protein) to develop properly, they may look fine on the outside but I have read too low of protein can cause reproductive and internal problems in later life.

It is not that much more money for Game Feed at Marties, I feed it to the show birds, the turkeys and any bird that is lucky enough to be raised with either of those two. It does not hurt the chicks to get the extra protein that I have found.




I am having a problem with Snitch. I had thought she wanted to be management the way she brings everything the other turkeys are doing wrong. When I was checking the breeding pens she followed me and was complaining loudly. I thought she was tattling on the turkeys on the peak of one of my sheds. (It was really high and she might be afraid of heights).

She followed me everywhere. When I filled the layers/turkey waterer she was happy. It had went dry this morning. Apparently she is not management just a complainer!

where I worked they were the same people

 

[MinnesotaNice]

They are supposed to be started on 28% game bird starter. I personally start mine on a mixture of game bird starter and 18% chick grower. It comes out to around 21%. It's not ideal for poults but works great for me since I raise poults and chicks together. Our Christmas turkey this year was raised this way and dressed out at 16 lbs. Not too bad for an 8 month old heritage breed, in my opinion anyway.

Peachicks need higher protein feed and I did the same for them - chick start mixed with game feed. I was brooding chicks at the same time and it was just easier like you said.

@duluthralphie , remind me again, where's Marties? I buy my game feed when I travel to Grand Rapids. The local L&M carries it, but nowhere around my parts has higher protein feed. It's also like $26 there. So expensive.

 

[GabrielBane]

Good afternoon! Hope all is well with everyone.


Just wanted to pop in and show a pic and ask a possible breeding question! We finally figured out what our mysterious light colored Jake was, we *believe* he's a lilac?


Our question is;
We purchased all 4 of our Poults from the same farm. Our two girls are Narragansett x Bronze's (which he is supposed to be as well, I'm not sure how he really came about in their flock...), how likely would it be that they're related? And I've ran the porters calculator, and it appears the cross would end up with Red Slate poults, unless I ran the calculator wrong? I wanna make sure, just in case. I can post some pics of the hens if it helps clarify questions.

We're also trading our spare Narragansett x Bronze Jake for a Palm for him, we're kinda making him our "main man" this spring. We're really in love with the Turkeys here.

 

[R2elk]

Do poults require a higher protein feed or can they be fed non-medicated chick starter? I'm assuming they pretty much brood the same as chickens and everything else?

Here is a good guide to the care of turkey poults.

http://69.195.124.84/~islandx3/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/baby-turkey-care.pdf

 

[R2elk]

They are supposed to be started on 28% game bird starter. I personally start mine on a mixture of game bird starter and 18% chick grower. It comes out to around 21%. It's not ideal for poults but works great for me since I raise poults and chicks together. Our Christmas turkey this year was raised this way and dressed out at 16 lbs. Not too bad for an 8 month old heritage breed, in my opinion anyway.

Based on the information in this study, it is a myth that chicks require a lower percent protein than do poults. According to this study it takes 70% protein to cause kidney disease in chickens while it only takes 40% protein to cause kidney disease in turkeys.

When I brood chicks, keets and poults together, they all get a high quality 28% protein turkey/gamebird starter while they are in the brooder.

I have never seen any ill effects on any of the chicks from the higher protein feed.

One really bad habit that I often read about are the people who mix in a medicated chick starter with the non-medicated turkey/gamebird starter. This can end up causing problems because the ratio of medication in the chick starter is being decreased below the proper dosage and can lead to the targeted organisms developing immunity to the medication.

 

[R2elk]

Good afternoon! Hope all is well with everyone.


Just wanted to pop in and show a pic and ask a possible breeding question! We finally figured out what our mysterious light colored Jake was, we *believe* he's a lilac?


Our question is;
We purchased all 4 of our Poults from the same farm. Our two girls are Narragansett x Bronze's (which he is supposed to be as well, I'm not sure how he really came about in their flock...), how likely would it be that they're related? And I've ran the porters calculator, and it appears the cross would end up with Red Slate poults, unless I ran the calculator wrong? I wanna make sure, just in case. I can post some pics of the hens if it helps clarify questions.

We're also trading our spare Narragansett x Bronze Jake for a Palm for him, we're kinda making him our "main man" this spring. We're really in love with the Turkeys here.

I could be wrong but I do not believe that your turkey is a Lilac based on the fact that Lilacs do not have the dark color patch on their wings that is exhibited in your photo. It is my belief that your turkey is more likely to be a Rusty Slate.

If your hens were created by breeding a Bronze tom with a Narragansett hen, they are Bronze hens since the n (Narragansett) gene is sex linked and the hen only has one n gene it ends up with the male offspring. If the tom was the Narragansett and the hen was the bronze the pairing would have produced Bronze toms and Narragansett hens.

The turkey in the photo could not have been produced by either pairing barring an exceptional mutation. Neither of the parents has the dominant B (black) gene or the dominant D (slate) gene nor do they exhibit the recessive r (red) gene required to create a Rusty Slate (Bb Dd Rr).

 

[memphis]

My first thought was Rusty Slate too.

 

[GabrielBane]

I could be wrong but I do not believe that your turkey is a Lilac based on the fact that Lilacs do not have the dark color patch on their wings that is exhibited in your photo. It is my belief that your turkey is more likely to be a Rusty Slate.

If your hens were created by breeding a Bronze tom with a Narragansett hen, they are Bronze hens since the n (Narragansett) gene is sex linked and the hen only has one n gene it ends up with the male offspring. If the tom was the Narragansett and the hen was the bronze the pairing would have produced Bronze toms and Narragansett hens.

The turkey in the photo could not have been produced by either pairing barring an exceptional mutation. Neither of the parents has the dominant B (black) gene or the dominant D (slate) gene nor do they exhibit the recessive r (red) gene required to create a Rusty Slate (Bb Dd Rr).

Awesome information! I hadn't heard about the Rusty Slate variety before. Thank you very much!




Here's a shot of the other tom, with his sister behind him (the other one is a complete lap bird, silly thing)

You can see both girls in this one, but they tend to be more ornery than our Jakes regarding camera/shint phones getting close;