A few questions from a beginner....

[Anna_MN]

I am looking into getting turkeys soon. I have an old fish house that I use for meat chickens. I will be completely done with meat chickens at the end of May and was curious if I could use the same enclosure. I was told that if I let the pen air our for two weeks or so that it should be good. Is this true?

The fish house is 10ft x 8ft. It is 8 feet tall. How many turkeys could I fit in this pen?

What do you feed your baby turkeys?

 

[FarmerGilland]

I don't know about the airing out...I would think that you could disinfect it and clean it out and let it air out for a day or 2 and then put turkeys in it, but I don't know how all that works. Does the house have an attached pen? My coop is 6x8 and the attached pen is 10x16. The man I bought my turkeys from said that it would hold 10 comfortably. I feed my babies game bird starter with the highest protein that my local co-op carries.

 

[Anna_MN]

The coop is 10 x 8 and the run right now is only 7 x 6 because there are meat chickens in there. If I were to get turkeys I will be expanding the run to 10 x 8 as well. The run is chain link fence.

 

[SillyChicken]

it would work depending on the number of turkeys, 10 seems like a lot. You may also want to consider adding more ventilation to it as turkeys need more air circulation. and you may want to add some high roosts inside the coop.

Will you be able to free range the birds or just keep them caged. If you want to cage them you many want to get some netting to cover the tops of the enlarged run. Bird netting is available at most home stores.

I would disinfect is as well as you can, and if possible, I'd move it to a different location to avoid possible black head disease. Chickens can carry it, but turkeys are affected by it. Best to start on clean ground if you can.