I have feeding questions

[AidanOshields]

I have six amazing turkeys that I held every day as poults and now there grown up and I love showing them off because there so friendly. I have one huge broad breasted bronze turkey and everyone’s scared of him.so I always give him a big hug if they trust him.

the problem is turkeys can be chunky(especially meat turkeys) so I’ve been watching very closely for any signs of him having trouble walking. Other than that those six turkey’s eat ALL of my dang food. Now I don’t know to much about free ranging but are turkeys good grazers? Can I instead feed them every other or 2 to 3 days or is that cruel? And my main thing is are the hens going to lay less eggs if so how many less?

sorry for no pictures of the bronze turkey he don’t like standing still lol

 

[BigBlueHen53]

According to my notes, @R2elk Is one of our most knowledgeable folk on the subject of turkeys. Hopefully he will be along soon to answer your questions and guide you. Good luck!

 

[AllenK RGV]

@007Sean has also raised them in his lifetime. I know wild turkeys forage just fine but know nothing of the foraging capabilities of domesticated ones. Editing in a location might help as well to provide climate information free ranging birds in Ohio would be much different than what I have to offer here in Citrus tree land. One potential resource for you:
https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/resources/internal /turkey-manual

 

[iwltfum]

Given the range has everything they need, free range domestic turkeys of the broad breasted variety can forage about 20% of their feed. I would continue to feed them every day personally, but you're absolutely right in that they will definitely eat all of your feed up in a hurry.

We just butchered our BBW flock yesterday - they were only 13 weeks old and had high quality pasture with access to all the fallen apples they could want and forest area to pick through - and they were still going through almost 1.5 pounds per bird per day. So your six birds could potentially be eating 10+ pounds of food per day if they are full grown and properly hungry. That's quite a bit. I always have a bit of freak out moment in the fall when I realize how much my turkeys are eating and how if I let them go even one more week, it will cost me hundreds in feed costs. Always inspires me to get my butchering plan figured out in a hurry