Feeder Issues?

[Amanda916]

Does anyone have turkeys that won't eat from their feeder?

I got my Bourbon Red turkeys at 22 weeks and they seem to have an issue with eating from their feeder. It's metal... If I scatter their food on the ground they'll eat. Especially if it's a treat like apples.

Just curious... their eating. It just seems odd to me.

 

[Oregon Blues]

If there is anything my turkeys like to do, it is to eat.

I use a feed pan for the turkeys. I use the same sort of feed pan for the ducks and geese. It works well for me. I purchase at Big R, but any feed store will carry the same feed pan. It's made by the same company that makes the heavy weight plastic buckets that don't get freeze damage. Feed pans are also available in rubber and galvanized steel. I like the size of the plastic ones. They are too small for the birds to get into and poop.

I use the rubber feed pans for swimming water for ducklings and poults (yes, poults will play in the water)

My young poults have a heavy crock for their food, because they will stand on the rim and tip a lighter bowl. They can't tip the heavy crock and they stop standing on the rim as they get older.

Is it the exact same food that they will eat off of the ground? If so, it is your feeders. But if they will eat treats off of the ground and not eat their feed out of the feeders, there might be something wrong with your feed.

 

[ivan3]

Like Oregon Blues said, they love to eat.

However, they are also creatures of habit (that which is known is safe - otherwise, avoid). You got them at over 5 months of age (set in their ways by 12 weeks, pretty much). Find out what kind of feeders former owner used, as well as kind of feed (switching turks out from pellets to crumble and vice-versa can be difficult).

See if they'll eat insects and throw some dampened meal worms into loaded feeder. That might get them started.

 

[Amanda916]

Thanks for the responses... I just spent some more time observing and am pretty sure we'll get passed their issues. Three are eating out of the feeder while the other two are eating off the ground. That would leave me to assume they had a pan on the ground. I'll just make sure I do both. With only five it's not an issue to accomodate. AND we added a bit of Milo to their normal feed two days ago so that's a change for them as well.

We are all getting to know each other. Thankfully they've been very patient and curious of me. No fear. I make sure I tower over the Tom so he'll learn who's the boss before he matures much more. So far so good. I'm learning their likes and dislikes. Corn on the cob and apples are great... squash and scrap meats not so much. lol