Heritage Turkeys growing too slow!

[Celie]

Nice looking Turkeys!

Are they still laying? That is ony about 20# of fed a month. ow many Turkeys do you have? I have 30something of these Hollands and they eat a sack a day of feed and also free range! They live to Eat !

 

[poultrypalacewhidbey]

As other have said you cannot expect a heritage turkey to grow like a broad breasted white or bronze. They will not grow to 20 lbs in 3 months. If fact many royal palm toms will take a full 18 months to grow to full weight (22 pounds). i have raised royal palms for a number of years and they are slow growers. they can be raised for meat but you have to plan ahead and monitor them to access growth rate and make sure that they are getting proper feed. If you want to raise them for meat you have to breed them yourself, with selective breeding I have been able to get a more consistently bodied meat bird (with a more consistent growth rate) than you can generally buy (unless you happen to have someone near you who specializes in palms) . There is no predictability when buying from hatcheries (or feed stores as they generally just buy from the big hatcheries). Hatcheries just focus on numbers, not breeding for any particular aspect so you will get wildly different results from year to year when raising the same breed for meat. I use my palms for meat and show, hatching a large number each year and culling 90% of them to the freezer or sold as pets or possible breeder stock. In a few years of careful breeding you can start to get some consistency in growth and better body shape however they will not be a big fast growing turkey. Palms have long flat breast muscles, unlike the broad breasted breeds that most people are used to (what you get in the grocery store). They are not a good breed to raise for those looking for a lot of breast meat from a turkey. However if you like leg meat they are a great bird. I feel they have a good balance, they have a decent amount of flavorful breast meat (better texture in my opinion than the broad breasted variaties have) and have lots of nice dark leg meat. I think they are well suited to what I use them for which is mostly parting them out not cooking them whole. However I have found that when young they make a good roasting turkey. I will generally try to have all my culls sold or slaughtered out by about 6 months of age. At that point they dont weigh that much maybe 7-8.5 pounds (females being a bit lighter, males heavier). I have experimented with different feed rations and have got them them much heavier than this however it requires access to good varied forage and feeding of a lot of quality high protein processed feed. High quality proteins such as fish meal in the feed seem to produce better results than really high soy vegetarian feeds. That said if you want a bigger bird you are going to have to feed a huge amount of food in addition to any forage they get. turkeys eat a lot, thats just the reality of it.
So good luck, but also realize that you have to be realistic in your expectations for a bird based on its breed characteristics. Since you seem to want a big bird for your thanksgiving table I would recommend getting a broad breasted type turkey next year and keep it on a high protein feed for most of its life to ensure as much growth as possible.

 

[Lagerdogger]

Feed conversion on turkeys is no better than 2.5 to 3# of feed per # of gain. Fifty # of feed divided by 6 turkeys equals only about 8 # of feed per month. At a conversion rate of 3#, that would be less than 3# of gain per month. We go through more like fifty # per week. They also have access to some pasture besides.

My experience is that feed conversion for heritage turkeys is close to 5:1 than 3:1. 3:1 is about right for broad-breasteds.

 

[Celie]

Yep,3:1 is about right for BB turkey, at 20 weeks,according to Myers Hatchery, Toms should weigh 43 # and have consumed 119# of feed, hens 29# and 83# of feed. BTW, they were on sale last week for $3.50 for their surplus straight run day old poults. It still shows this on weekly specials page, not updated, don't know if hey have anymore at this price, but you could call. You will pay $10 to $12 and up for heritage turkey poults

 

[Celie]

Here are my White Heritage Turkeys, yes they are hatchery. I got them in April, have only gone through 100 lbs of turkey grower. They live like wild tame birds. I taught them where all the berries and such were in the woods and they know where the chicken feed is but don't gooble it down. They have always free ranged once big enough and they sleep in the trees, oh they chase cars out to the street, not good.

Looks like you have 2 toms and 1 hen in this pic. Beautiful birds, great job you are doing as foster mom, teaching them where the berries and such are!

 

[n8mont4]

Update:

The males are all 20 pounds and the females are around 10 pounds. They have started to eat a lot more and pack on the weight. Thanks for the help!