Free range turkeys?
- Thread starter Azriel
- Start date
The only absolute rule when it comes to free ranging turkeys is:
"When it comes to free ranging turkeys you have to teach the turkeys what to do. Other wise your flock will disappear on you."
Each flock is going to be a little or a lot different. It can depends on what type of turkeys you have and there surrounding.
You can get a clue by finding out how good a forager any specific type is, and how much material you have close by for foraging.
The first step is making sure they know where home is. This is usually done by letting them stay in there enclosures for a number days or weeks.
There is not always a magic time period for this. But if you have raised them since they were poults then the time is usually shorter.
if you purchased adult birds this is longer. Generally 2 weeks seems about the average.
Make sure you have something that will entice them to return. You need to find some thing that is a healthy treat for them.
Some use plain scratch. We found that fancy scratch works better then anything else. Fancy Scratch this is cracked corn with
other seeds added to it. You feed this twice a day or once a day in the evening. Its best to put this on the ground in
there enclosure. We use those plastic coffee can that you can get now days to carry feed in. we just shack the can a little and
they come running after a while.
Have roosts in the enclosure as it goes against the instincts of turkeys to sleep on the ground. If you don't sooner or later they
will find someplace off the ground to sleep. Most roost we use for turkeys are no more then 2 feet tall, but it does get the off
the ground.
What you have for the to eat while free ranging makes a difference. If all you have is pasture grass or lawn grass
they may go looking for better things to eat. They prefer weeds, if given a choice between crab grass and blue grass
they will go for the crab grass. Stop spraying to kill bugs, Turkeys love to hunt and eat bugs this will be another reason
to stay around.
Start out with supervised free ranging, this way you will heard them back to where they belong. Sometime you only have to do this for a few time.
other times over several weeks. This trains them where to go and what to do, hopefully the route that they go has
good weeds and insects. But it never hurts to check it out first.
Keep an eye out for that one bird that causes problems. 1 year after we followed did all the above we still had a flock
that wander off all the time. we finally figured out we had one hen that had no sense of direction. she would always go opposite of
the rest of the bird them call the others to her. They would keep this up until they were a was away, the furthest we found
them was a 1/2 mile away. once we herded them back and they got close to there pen and coop they went running back
to where they belonged. So we just kept her in when the rest of the flock was out and no more lost flock.
If you flock does disappear on you keep them in "lock down" for a few days. This will reinforce were they should be and where home is.
During "lock down" make sure you give them treats.
"When it comes to free ranging turkeys you have to teach the turkeys what to do. Other wise your flock will disappear on you."
Each flock is going to be a little or a lot different. It can depends on what type of turkeys you have and there surrounding.
You can get a clue by finding out how good a forager any specific type is, and how much material you have close by for foraging.
The first step is making sure they know where home is. This is usually done by letting them stay in there enclosures for a number days or weeks.
There is not always a magic time period for this. But if you have raised them since they were poults then the time is usually shorter.
if you purchased adult birds this is longer. Generally 2 weeks seems about the average.
Make sure you have something that will entice them to return. You need to find some thing that is a healthy treat for them.
Some use plain scratch. We found that fancy scratch works better then anything else. Fancy Scratch this is cracked corn with
other seeds added to it. You feed this twice a day or once a day in the evening. Its best to put this on the ground in
there enclosure. We use those plastic coffee can that you can get now days to carry feed in. we just shack the can a little and
they come running after a while.
Have roosts in the enclosure as it goes against the instincts of turkeys to sleep on the ground. If you don't sooner or later they
will find someplace off the ground to sleep. Most roost we use for turkeys are no more then 2 feet tall, but it does get the off
the ground.
What you have for the to eat while free ranging makes a difference. If all you have is pasture grass or lawn grass
they may go looking for better things to eat. They prefer weeds, if given a choice between crab grass and blue grass
they will go for the crab grass. Stop spraying to kill bugs, Turkeys love to hunt and eat bugs this will be another reason
to stay around.
Start out with supervised free ranging, this way you will heard them back to where they belong. Sometime you only have to do this for a few time.
other times over several weeks. This trains them where to go and what to do, hopefully the route that they go has
good weeds and insects. But it never hurts to check it out first.
Keep an eye out for that one bird that causes problems. 1 year after we followed did all the above we still had a flock
that wander off all the time. we finally figured out we had one hen that had no sense of direction. she would always go opposite of
the rest of the bird them call the others to her. They would keep this up until they were a was away, the furthest we found
them was a 1/2 mile away. once we herded them back and they got close to there pen and coop they went running back
to where they belonged. So we just kept her in when the rest of the flock was out and no more lost flock.
If you flock does disappear on you keep them in "lock down" for a few days. This will reinforce were they should be and where home is.
During "lock down" make sure you give them treats.
- Thread starter
- #13
Will raccons bother turkeys? Or are they too big. I had a coon problem last fall and ended up putting an electric fence arround the chickens. Will the BBB want to roost, I'm leaning to them because I've heard they don't fly well, but they do get bigger than I really want. I wanted to put them in the pole barn by the horses so they would be able to dig throught the horse poo and find bugs, grain, exct, I also had a big grasshopper problem last summer, and thought they would enjoy them. I do have an area that I could fence in better, but they wouldn't be able to free range as much.
I have raccoons here sometimes, the biggest problem I had with them with the turkeys was when they decided to attack an adult BB hen while she was trying to nest. I have found that BB turkeys that forage for most of their food over the summer (at least here) don't get as huge though some folks on this board still end up with the monster sized birds. I have had BBW at 5 months old that could still fly up and perch on a 6' fence. They do a GREAT job with grass hopper control... half a mile down the road there were hoppers everywhere but very few here. In all honesty I only fed them like once a week to remind them that they live here, and periodically checked in between to make sure they felt like they were eating ok. It's been a few years since I let them roam, the last year towards late Aug/early Sept I had two disappear (not the same day) and never did find if the predator that took them had two or four legs, but locked them up after that. It was about the time that I found that we had a fox family take up residence in the pasture, so...? Another thing, if you have any apple trees, when the apples start dropping the turkeys will happily clean them up. Which means the yellow jackets don't hang around as much (or maybe the turkeys ate them, too?) Either way, just be prepared, turkeys (BB and heritage both) are very addictive and the hardest birds for me to kill. The cornish chickens don't bother me because they tend to be rather mean as they grow.
Quote:
Sorry to hijack the thread but Randy, is that a curly pig in your profile pic?
Sorry to hijack the thread but Randy, is that a curly pig in your profile pic?
If you want a "small" turkey for your family... you could consider free rainging a few broad breasted whites (as to not have others think they are wild) and butcher them at 3 months old. I free ranged my broad breasted bronz, but we have no other turkeys and they never went more than 50 feet from the feed.
Quote:
Ah. I see the curly haired sheep are the new and endangered thing for heritage breeds. Thought about getting some myself.
Ah. I see the curly haired sheep are the new and endangered thing for heritage breeds. Thought about getting some myself.
- Thread starter
- #19
They grow very fast, darn near exponentially. I think all the commercial birds reach market weight in 4 months or less.
Here I am hugging my two toms at 3 months old, 11.5 weeks to be more precise.
Here is one showing off at more towards 5 months. He's not quite as big as the feathers make him out to be.
They were total sweethearts. I miss them! If you get the meat type, you'll not be able to keep them around as pets for very long lives anyway, so that will make the job easier.
To put it in perspective, the meat birds you buy at 5-6lbs in the grocery store are about 6 weeks old.
Here I am hugging my two toms at 3 months old, 11.5 weeks to be more precise.
Here is one showing off at more towards 5 months. He's not quite as big as the feathers make him out to be.
They were total sweethearts. I miss them! If you get the meat type, you'll not be able to keep them around as pets for very long lives anyway, so that will make the job easier.
To put it in perspective, the meat birds you buy at 5-6lbs in the grocery store are about 6 weeks old.
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