Gettin some turkeys

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

I was thinking the same thing Colby

Steve

 

[49erjohns]

colby---thanks for the back yard welcome. I want you to post some pictures of your turkeys. I'll bet you have a few with blackhead. Do you know the signs of blackhead? And, YES my family has bought from every known hatchery in the country. Thats why I can recomend one for turkeys. WAITING FOR PICS!!! JOHN

 

[gettinaclue]

John, thank you for the warning about turkeys and chickens together. The BBB are way to big for me I think. I want to start with something smaller since I'm just starting out with turkeys, and only have about 6 months experience with chickens. How do you cook something that big? 80 lbs is a lot of turkey! How much do they weigh when they've been dressed?

Also, thank you for the recommendation on the hatchery, I do appreciate it. However, I contacted Steve some months ago about buying some poults from him since I get down his way semi-regularly and his heritage breeds appeal to me.

Let's please all be decent and respectful to one another. There is no need to be ugly when we are all trying to help each other and learn from the experiences of others and help others with our own experiences.

All input is welcome, I need all the info I can get! I'm very nervous about the turkeys since I hear they can be pretty fragile when they are young.

 

[49erjohns]

Gettinaclue......you are right to be nervous about raising turkeys....so much can go wrong. Start with clean day old chicks. Start them off on hardware cloth. They eat droppings and need to be trained not to by not having any kind of droppings in front of them. The hadware cloth really works. Feed them medicated turkey starter from day one with good clean water. I start them off too with just a little grass clippings every day. Watch their droppings every day. If it becomes loose - cut back on the grass. As soon as they are ready to be moved out of the hardware cloth floor brooder, put them on saw dust. Now is a good time to start letting them outside but watch for hawks.
An 80 pound turkey dose not go far when you have 75+ relatives over for Thanksgiving. You can't beat your own fresh turkey!!!
Are you going to butch them yourself? JOHN

 

[gettinaclue]

Yes, the plan is to butcher them ourselves after letting them grow for about 10-12 months. I'll only be getting 5 or so - I think. Probably midgets, but the final decision hasn't been made on that either. I just want at least 2 to survive for my table. Big is not very important, just delicious.

I just need to figure out how to get them from poult to table. Since I may be getting them around Thanksgiving-ish, I am planning on building a brooder with the hardwire bottom to keep in the sun room in the house. It's not something I'm looking forward to. I sure hated the way the chickens smelled when they were in the house. I was constantly cleaning their brooder, but the hard wire bottom should be much easier to keep clean and keep my house from smelling stinky. I've been thinking on whether or not to start them with medicated starter. I probably will, just to play it safe, but haven't done enough research on it yet to make that final decision.

The next question is how soon to move them outside..and that will totally depend on what breed I get and how soon they feather out.
SOME INPUT HERE WOULD BE GREAT STEVE! I'M LEANING HEAVILY TOWARD MIDGETS OR BOURBON REDS. WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE HERE?

I was initially thinking of just a PVC chicken tractor modified to keep turkeys, but am now rethinking that since it gets in the single digits here some winters and pretty cold in the spring at nights, and I'm afraid that just isn't enough protection....so we will have to build...which may put us off six months to a year to getting them...depending on when we can get something built for the turkeys. Whatever we build will have to be near the chicken coop. It's an issue of space and neighbor relations. Meaning....I have my chicken coop on the back right part of my property to keep them away from out neighbors so I don't hear complaints about noise or anything. There really isn't anywhere to put them to meet these requirements.

Which leads to another question...HOW NOISY ARE TURKEYS?

We will be getting some meat chickens in the spring and butchering them, so hopefully it will get us prepared to do our turkeys in the fall of next year or early spring of the following year, depending on when I get them initially. It will be my first experience with butchering and I've been trying to educate myself. Since I don't know anyone who does their own around here, I've been going on youtube to learn how and know what to expect. I would much rather have some hands on, but barring that, I'm willing to learn as I go.

Input anyone? I would really like all advice you can offer.

Thank you!

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

If you are getting them in Nov. You are looking at keeping them inside about 3 to 4 months! Frosty from North Dakota would be my "go to person" for cold weather housing, tips etc. In my area temps in the teens are front page news so our set up may or may not work. Medicated feed is the way to go and all we use for the little ones. We wrote an article for Mother Earth News that maybe of some help to you on raising them.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/The-Happy-Homesteader/Raising-Turkey-Poults.aspx

Once they fully feather out they can handle the temps, fully feathered includes the down under the feathers, that's where their warmth is. And that's why I always advise to keep them dry. A cold poult equals an unthrifty poult, A cold wet poult equals a dead poult. After the brooder stage we raise our poultry together - turkeys, chickens, geese, guineas, ducks and peafowl. I have never lost a bird to blackhead, Histomoniasis - AKA blackhead has to be present in the soil for them to get it, yes chickens can be carriers but so can wild birds. My advice there is do some research and make up your own mind, your local Ag rep can tell you if there have been any reported cases in your area.

Turkeys don't really make any more noise than a rooster crowing. The toms will gobble but it's not a 3am thing like a rooster.

Processing isn't a big deal once you have done it few times, and after the first time it goes much quicker. For your first processing just do a couple chickens. Everything will take twice as long as you figure. lol at least. The hardest part with turkeys is actually killing it. It's just Sharon and myself usually on processing day (people show up after the fact wanting meat) so we take a feed bag, cut one corner out and put the turkey in the bag with just the head sticking out, tie the legs together and wrap a rope around the mid section of the turkey to hold the wings down and Sharon uses that also as a grip. She holds it in a bear hug over the chopping block and off with the head. Also you need a big scalder if you are going to pluck them. I found an old 30 gallon cast iron wash cauldren at a yard sale years ago for 25 bucks, best 25 I ever spent.

On your choice of varieties you can't go wrong on either the BR or the MW. They are our 2 favorite table birds but we rank the MW the best taste

Steve

 

[Lotsapaints]

I'll vote for Midget Whites the BR seem to be wanna be escape artists.....I love them both though and I never thought white birds could be so good looking either I love the colors when the midgets strut their stuff

 

[gettinaclue]

Excellent advice! Thanks very much!

I was afraid that I was going to have to brood them in the house until spring, and you have confirmed that. My initial thoughts now are to get them in late spring and early summer of next year and let them grow out for the 10 to 12 months. That has the added advantage of being cool outside for butchering (a requirement of my DH - who am I to argue - he's willing to help)

I would like to house them with my chickens, but my coop is slightly over full now. I built for 8, bought 10 expecting a couple/few not to make it - but the all did. There really isn't room there for turkeys.

Is there a food/treat that I shouldn't feed turkeys? I currently feed my chicken table scraps to help defer the feed bill. Will this be okay for them?

Is there anything else you can think of that I should know?

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

You want to start in the early spring if you want Thanksgiving birds but that has it's own problems (nothing is ever easy) People will have hatching eggs early but they can and do freeze in transit and every spring here on BYC you read people's posts of getting boxes of cold and or dead chicks from shipping. Do you have a local source for poults? If not i'm a member of the ALBC and the SPPA and both have nationwide member breeder lists, if you want PM me and we might be able to find you a close breeder.

Turkeys will eat anything, hard boiled egg yokes are good for poults (it's high protien) Speaking of that check around for a high protien starter feed for them, we feed a 28% medicated game bird starter. They like dark greens like Collards or Cabbage, apples get eaten pretty quick.

Steve

 

[OmaBird]

I noticed alot of talk about medicated feed. I can get 4 to 5 brands of turkey starter where I live but not one of them is medicated. I have never had a problem either with not having it. I wonder if it is a regional thing like blackheads.