Heritage Breed Personality Questions

americanchicks

Songster
11 Years
Jun 26, 2012
364
379
246
Buckley, Wa
Hi all!
I have been raising turkeys for meat for the past few years. This is my first time rasing heritage. I have 5 five month old bourbon reds. Lucked out with 2 boys and 3 girls. I will end up keeping just one Jake and rehoming or take the other to freezer camp. So far they are wonderful birds! Sweet, curious, and funny. My concern is when they get mature. I have read that heritage breeds can be aggressive. Are their any tips or tricks to keep them relatively nice? I have been trying to encourage my daughters, 9 and 7, to spend more time with them. Lately one of the jakes displays when the kids are outside. He never does it to me I'm assuming it's because hes used to me. Thanks for reading

took this this morning.....
20210914_091537.jpg
 
Temperament can be an individual thing. I personally have not he any aggressive males. A few young ones had made me slightly nervous over the years, and those get removed. Usually they will follow me closely when my back is turned. Friendly birds move away, and give you their side when displaying.

In general I find the bourbon to be very curious and personable, but most turkeys are if handled a lot when young. I don't have kids here so I can't comment on whether they change the situation. My toms have always displayed for me. I find nothing aggressive about it. I usually just tell them how pretty they are.
 
I have raised hundreds of heritage turkeys over the years and have not had any aggressive towards me. Only time I have seen human aggressive turkeys is older birds that have imprinted on humans as poults. They just consider you as one of them and always testing the peaking order. I am sure there are some that just have a bad temperament but I must have been lucky or its the way they are raised. My kids are all adults so they are not around kids all the time, but are around younger kids often and have not seen any aggression towards them. In my opinion its better not to let them imprint on you as poults and let them be turkeys and you human until they are a little older then interact with them more and get them more human friendly. They still get very affectionate and super friendly and want human attention without the aggression or trying to challenge you for peaking order. And yes they all have there own personalities some want more human interactions than others and others not so much. I love raising them and think they are some of the best birds to raise very intelligent and so personable towards humans despite all the myths that they are a dumb bird. They just have different needs and instincts than other poultry.
 
Hi all!
I have been raising turkeys for meat for the past few years. This is my first time rasing heritage. I have 5 five month old bourbon reds. Lucked out with 2 boys and 3 girls. I will end up keeping just one Jake and rehoming or take the other to freezer camp. So far they are wonderful birds! Sweet, curious, and funny. My concern is when they get mature. I have read that heritage breeds can be aggressive. Are their any tips or tricks to keep them relatively nice? I have been trying to encourage my daughters, 9 and 7, to spend more time with them. Lately one of the jakes displays when the kids are outside. He never does it to me I'm assuming it's because hes used to me. Thanks for reading

took this this morning.....
View attachment 2833228
I see by your pic that they are making themselves at home and looking for that human interaction. :thumbsup
 

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