Breeding turkeys this spring? please reply

[joshm97]

Hi I reasently got a new hen and added her to my flock. she is getting along nicely with the other hen and 2 jakes. these birds are 3 and 4 months old. will they breed this spring? if so will they raise their young naturally? do I have to take the jakes and toms out of the pen? Please help me and give me a list of supplies I will need. I raised three babies but not 10 halp and thank you

 

[Lagerdogger]

Sound like your turkeys will be old enough to breed. If they are heritage turkeys, you don't need any supplies. They will make nests and hatch young on their own. You may want to incubate some eggs anyway, because poults you hatch in an incubator are easier to make friendly than poults being raised by a protective mother. Sometimes they hatch while the toms are still interested, and if you don't have other birds the toms may step on very young poults, so you may choose to separate the toms right before the hatch. This is probably not necessary, but relieves the worried mind the first time your turkey has poults.

If you care which turkey breeds with which turkey, you will need to make some runs to keep the desired pairs together.

If they are broad-breasted, the toms can get too large to breed naturally and you will need to learn about artificial insemination.

You will have a hard time keeping the adults out of the poult starter. You can build a little feeding station that the young birds can get into but the old birds cannot, or just switch every one to starter for a while. It won't hurt the adults, but it is more expensive.

Make sure you provide a couple of small waterers too.

 

[joshm97]

well I can't purchase an incubator because they are to expencive so would I be able to remove them after birth?

 

[Lagerdogger]

You could, but why would you?

Turkey hens are good at raising turkeys. Just make sure you have food and water that they can reach. The hen will find these places and bring her young to them when they need it.

One reason to bring them in is if you have predators and no fence. Another reason to bring them in is that poults raised by their mothers are not as friendly as poults raised by hand. A third reason is if you want to have a second clutch you can take the poults away andf they may start laying again. So there are reasons to remove poults, but the easiest thing to do is let mom do her thing.

 

[frank53061]

I agree the Incubators are costly I made a Incubator from a Styrofoam box and other cheap parts.
You could then buy a egg turner or if you are a Handy person with tools I built my egg turner for about $20.00 just to see if I could and it works fine knock on wood.
This next spring will be the 3rd time to use it and keep tweaking it and the last hatch I got 90% hatch rate I think that's pretty good.
But this time I will be including some Turkey eggs and see how that does.
Best of luck.

 

[Scottingitup]

You will have to seperate the toms. I learned this the hard way last year

Incubators are costly but I love my gqf sportsman. I did a staggered hatches this year. Next year I hope to do one big hatch. Staggering sucks.

 

[joshm97]

my turkeys imprinted on me will my hens still be very protective?

 

[idellia]

myturkeysare1andhalfyearold noeggswhy