How do I get my turkeys into my coop?

[cassidy22]

My turkeys have taken to sleeping in an aspen tree. No, I won't cut it down.

I built them a beautiful 10x10x10 shed, with nesting boxes and lots of perches. I have about a dozen chickens and a roo that have adopted the shed (instead of their own chicken coop!)

I took the turkeys from the brooder to the shed. THe door is split in half, so we opened the top half, and some windows and let them live in there until they were big enough to fly out on their own. Thinking this would teach them that it is their home.

Half of them have made it back to the barn (where the brooder is), the larger ones have taken to the trees. All of their food and water is near or in the shed, but at night, they still take to the trees. The ones in the barn, i can catch nightly, and move them to the shed until they get it. BUt I can't reach the ones in the trees. We have processed all our holiday turkeys and the rest are my breeding stock, but I need them to stay in their home.

Last year, we ended up giving up and letting them live in the barn. Several of them laid eggs there, but we noticed the hens would actually leave our property to lay eggs and brood them, where they were not protected, and coyotes got them. I really want them to like their coop and lay in their coop so that I can hatch the eggs and not feed my local pack of coyotes.

Any ideas?

 

[Kevin565]

How long did you leave them locked up in the coop? I've never had turkeys but I know with guineas it takes a few weeks for them to figure out where home is for the night.

 

[jasonm11]

once tehy take to the trees it is hard to get them back in a coup. I find that when the weather gets rough mine generally get out of the tree and back under shelter. This only lasts as long as the weather is bad then they are back in the tree's. If you are really worried about losing bird then you may have to put poultry netting over their run to keep them in containment.

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

If you place their feed inside the coop, they should go back inside to at least eat. I would tempt them inside for food and lock them up again for at least a month. You want perches as high as possible. Try cutting a small tree and placing it inside the coop for them. Or get them a Christmas Tree. You may just ahve to wait until they have less forage available. Try using lettuce or cabbage leaves to tempt them.

 

[ivan3]

Unless someone is handy every evening to ID them as they start to eyeball the tree as they stretch their wings (best time to herd them into shed), I'd go with the netting (if at all possible). Hens can't be allowed to fly over the fence during the Spring (as you've sadly discovered). Our original flock was consistently marched off, Every Evening, to their shed. The adults now instruct the poults and we don't have to bother with it. Our hen's attempts at unauthorized nests are completely destroyed.

After losing one RP hen, in the middle of the afternoon, to a perfectly healthy coon on a daytime schedule (trapped it the following day at 13:45 - know the time because we were working the garden when the trap slammed shut - coon had RP feathers in lower gut), we return all eggs to `safe' nests. The RP hen had been sharing a safe nest with the Slate but had a second one accumulating eggs just inside the tree line (thought she was just going out daily for a bit of foraging and a dirt bath - little did we know).