Fussy eaters

[Nagogx]

Hi all. Our 3 turkeys are very fussy eaters. Currently the only things they will eat is carrots and a barley/oat/pea mix from a local farmer. We have tried feeding them broccoli, cauliflower, silverbeet, bread, apple, pear, celery, sunflower seed....they won't touch them. Very frustrating. We were led to believe they would eat practically anything.

One question : can we feed them meat? We have a lot of different kinds leftover at times.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

How old are they? A turkeys natural diet includes seeds, grains, grasses, weeds, and bugs for the most part. Mine won't eat broccoli either. You should provide a good ration and than can supplement some extras as they get older, but in my experiences turkeys aren't adventurous eaters. I doubt they would touch meat unless they starving. Mine like to pasture graze for a short while during the day, but prefer to eat their ration and a bit of corn and black oil sunflower seeds.

 

[Nagogx]

They are about 8 months old. They seem happy enough but I imagined they would eat most things. They have eaten all the grass in their 50 square yard roaming area. Maybe I should just get some from nearby paddocks and give it to them?

 

[User395221]

I know nothing about turkeys, but when introducing/trying to get domestic pet birds to eat veggies, you chop them all up really fine. For a bird on only a seed diet, you get them to try the veggies, by putting their seed on top. They eat the seed, they get some veggies by accident. Eventually, they'll start eating the bird chop. If you really want them to eat veggies, you could try making them some chop and put their barley/oat mix on top.

I think it's natural for young birds (all young animals) to be unadventurous in what they eat. They might get more open to other foods when they are more mature?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

At 8 months they are as adventurous as they are going to get. Mine will eat cucumber slices, tomatoes, apples, and watermelon. We occasionally throw some grass clippings in the run. You're might need a bigger run. In winter mine will forage through hay too.

 

[sfgwife]

We got our hens and tom as adults.... they will only eat watermelon and an occasional mater. But holy hell watermelon time is a funny funny thing. They come a runnin! The poults when small loved peas now.. not so much. Watermelon all the way.

 

[sarcasm]

My turkeys will try to taste (steal) anything I have in my hands, so they're probably about as willing to try things as any turkey gets (I had a turkey take a bite of mango ice cream once, possibly the only turkey ever to eat that). They don't seem enthused about most veggies except tomatoes. They like fruit better, but really they don't seem to want to work at eating most of it - they get excited for anything they can swallow whole (blueberries, cranberries, little tomatoes, etc.). The only thing they'll sit and work on seem to be melons or something with obvious seeds in it, and even then usually they just eat the seeds. I honestly think the turkeys wouldn't eat as much stuff as they do if the chickens didn't seem so interested in the 'treats' I bring out.
As far as meat goes, they might eat it but I wouldn't count on it. If you're looking for birds to eat table scraps, you may want to try chickens instead of turkeys. The chickens LOVE leftovers.