How old do female turkeys have to be to have babys and when do they stop.

[JonathanL23]

So i Have a female that's 4-5 months old shes i think half commercial white and half something else i dont think she will be ready to have babys in the spring but i'm getting 3 new females and there 2 years old so i believe its safe to say they can have chicks but when well they not be able to have babys. when there 5 yrs. Also i dont know if its legal but i'll say it anyway my tom is part wild turkey hes dad was half and half the new turkeys im told are also part wild. so will they make good moms well they build and and sit on the eggs or should i give them to a Hen/chicken or incubate them.

 

[chknoodles]

Domestic turkey hens will lay after they have been thru one winter. So if any of the girls were hatched last year, they should lay this year..might be a little later in the season than the older hens, but they will. As for the "wild", we had 2 wild hens and they were old enough to lay but never did and we don't have them this year to see if they would have started.

All turkey hens go broody at some point in the season..sometimes twice if you live in the south where the breeding season is a bit longer. Our girls start laying in March and quit completely about mid-Sept. We had 3 girls in one pen and once one girl went broody, it wasn't long before the other two went broody. Be sure that when your girls are sitting on eggs that the Tom cannot get to them cause he will try to mate them even tho they are sitting on eggs.

 

[ivan3]

So i Have a female that's 4-5 months old shes i think half commercial white and half something else i dont think she will be ready to have babys in the spring but i'm getting 3 new females and there 2 years old so i believe its safe to say they can have chicks but when well they not be able to have babys. when there 5 yrs. Also i dont know if its legal but i'll say it anyway my tom is part wild turkey hes dad was half and half the new turkeys im told are also part wild. so will they make good moms well they build and and sit on the eggs or should i give them to a Hen/chicken or incubate them.

Legality? There are folks who maintain domestic Easterns (the most prolific "Wild" in U.S.) so I'm sure your crosses descend from that stock . We've gotten healthy poults from our, then, 8 y.o. Slate hen (though fewer hatches every year). We've had seven month old jennies, working on hormones alone, attempt to go broody (shot below - Valentine's day 2012 - she hissed all the way back to the shed). They make excellent mothers, but require determined humans to make sure they have a safe nesting/brooding location.