Making and Placing an Irresistible Nestbox

[pdpatch]

From our experience, you are free ranging your turkeys and they go broody on you, about the only reliable way is to keep them laying in a nesting box is to put them in lock down in a coop and or pen.

Tom

 

[MovieFanz]

Mine all use a nest box if they are in there pen. If I let them out they will lay anywhere. The ravens eat alot of the eggs when they free range. I think it is best to lock them up.

 

[PatS]

Alan, you have a very nice set-up there. Can I ask, what are the dimensions of your tractors? Do you drag 'em with a truck or are they moveable with people-power?
I remember you saying on another forum that you either pen the poultry in, or you pen them out (of the garden). We're penning them out. Penning them in would be easier.
Thanks.

 

[Omniskies]

We have found that the nestbox the turkeys adored the most is the one that we built around them when they went broody.

Chicken wire, old scrap lumber, and something to weigh down the top. Once you find where she has gone broody then measure out a decent cage (if you don't have one on hand) and lay it over her and the nest so that she is away from any of the sides. Weigh it down so nothing can topple it over and put cinder blocks (or something heavy) around the base so nothing will dig under. A folded out wire base also works well so that animals that are digging hit the wire and assume it's a lost cause.

Besides keeping them locked up during the breeding season, that is the only way we have found to keep them broody, on the nest, and safe from predators.

Inside the pens when we do lock them up we provide tires full of straw for them to use as nests. Our turkeys and geese love them for laying. We can make a shelter over the tire if we want someone to go broody in there after enough eggs have been laid. Mostly that is used for our geese.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Quote:
Just noticed your questions.

My tractor dimensions are based on two things. The height (width) of the cattle panels (50.5 inches) and my need to be able to move the tractors through my ten foot gates. Two panels side by side are about 101 inches long so the 4x4 sledge runners are ten feet long. They'll stick out a bit on both ends. I made the width nine feet outside to outside. This makes the hoops high enough that I can stand up inside. Interior dimensions are roughly 8ft x 8.5ft or about 64 sq ft.

Mine are movable by hand, but it takes a grown man since they are somewhat heavy. Wheels would make them movable by just about anyone. Keep the apron wire at least eighteen inches in width and two feet would be better for rough ground. I found out the hard way that twelve inches wasn't quite enough last winter.