Getting two baby turkeys

[youngbaedong]

I'm getting two baby turkeys to raise for our local rodeo for the FFA kids. I would like to know if they eat the same as chickens or is their feed different?

I'm new to this poultry thing since I just own ducks and chickens, if you could give me advice on turkeys that would be great!

 

[Luv Turkey Talk]

I always use a high protein game starter. They need it to develop strong legs and bones to hold their weight. As poults I also sprinkle in the tiny granite. You might also consider the vaccine for pox that must be given when they are poults. View the threads on dry pox and wet pox, it's been going around. They get infected by mosquitoes and its no fun to doctor them to health and try to keep them from developing wet pox!!! As they say, and ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
Blessings to you! The more time you spend with them the more tame they will be.

 

[youngbaedong]

I always use a high protein game starter. They need it to develop strong legs and bones to hold their weight. As poults I also sprinkle in the tiny granite. You might also consider the vaccine for pox that must be given when they are poults. View the threads on dry pox and wet pox, it's been going around. They get infected by mosquitoes and its no fun to doctor them to health and try to keep them from developing wet pox!!! As they say, and ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
Blessings to you! The more time you spend with them the more tame they will be.

Do they sell it at TSC? That's the only place in my area that sells items for farm animals. Oh, wow I didn't know they needed a vaccine. I'll look for the thread here or I'll google it as well

Can I give them oyster shells? I'm hoping they sell everything at TSC for the baby turkeys.

 

[Luv Turkey Talk]

Yes, TSC sells both, and they do have the fine granite. Get the crumbles. Don't get pellets until they are older, and when they are ready for them I mix both the crumbles and the pellets to transition them to just pellets and then I add whole corn as a treat. Mine won't eat cracked corn for some reason but love the whole corn. Turkeys love (some) bugs, most fruits and veggies too and will eat from your hand. I don't give treats until they are a couple of weeks old and then only in very small quantities to start with because they need the protein. Amazingly, without a parent to nurture them they have an innate ability to select what to eat so if I introduce something and they don't seem interested I will remove it. This spring when I had our two little toms out foraging when they were onky a couple if weeks old, one found a baby bird fallen from a nest and gobbled it down before I could get to him and retrieve it. I was just shocked both by the fact that he ate it and that it was physically capable to swallow something of that size.

Mine are so spoiled and strictly pets so I really wanted them to be tame. To do this, I start when about 4-5 days old holding them in my palm in their backs and let them sleep. I make sure the heat lamp is nearby so they don't get too cold (or toowarm) since their body temp is much higher than our own. I have full grown toms over 30lbs that still love being held like babies. I just have to do it without the other toms seeing it because they get jealous waiting for their turn and the fight is on!!!
We have a pair of toms that will run or fly to us from wherever they are when we clap our hands. We started clapping when they were poults, it's still cute!
Let me know how it goes! They are amazing!

I learned of the pox when they all got it this year and when we contacted the university they said it was really prevalent this year. Some raisers never have a problem with it. It's a personal choice to vaccinate but look over the threads here with picks and you can see what can happen and what they can suffer. We were lucky that they just got the dry pox, but let me tell you, it's a lot of worrisome hours spent, medicine and time tending to them and clean, clean, clean everything.