Aozora
In the Brooder
- Mar 13, 2015
- 33
- 2
- 37
Hi all! I think I know what I'm doing, but I want to ask the experts to be sure.
I picked up 2 one-month-old Mammoth Bronze poults from Mt. Healthy Hatcheries at a feed store a few days ago. I saw what they were eating, and it looks like it was 18% chick starter, so for the first month they've had very low protein.
I've now got them on 28% game bird feed, and I have both vitamins and ACV in their water to try to boost them a bit. Since they started off slow, how long should I keep them on the high quality feed before switching them over to 20% flock raiser? I've got them with food 24/7, again because they started off slow. How long should it be before I start limiting their feed?
They're healthy and active, bouncing all over the place and climbing up and down on a box in their brooder. I had to put in two juvenile coturnix quail roosters to teach them how to bird, as they were unable to figure out their food dishes at first. It's pretty adorable to see the odd quad get along, with the quail zipping in and out of the gangly turkey legs. I think I'll probably keep the quail with the turkeys for a few months, to continue to teach them how to bird, especially once I move them outside.
I want to put them out in a tractor in a month, when they are approximately 8 weeks old. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to get them to learn to forage for food on the ground. When I raised meat chickens, I would feed them twice a day and just scatter the food on the ground so they had to scratch for it and stay active and behave like real chickens. Will this technique work on turkeys?
I'm not in a hurry to raise the biggest critters possible. I want to process in September, and I'll be happy with whatever size they reach by that time. It looks like I have a jake and a hen, so there will be a size difference anyway. I've processed chickens before, but never anything as large as a turkey. Are there any good threads/blogs/etc about how to process birds that size?
Thanks in advance for all the help!
I picked up 2 one-month-old Mammoth Bronze poults from Mt. Healthy Hatcheries at a feed store a few days ago. I saw what they were eating, and it looks like it was 18% chick starter, so for the first month they've had very low protein.
I've now got them on 28% game bird feed, and I have both vitamins and ACV in their water to try to boost them a bit. Since they started off slow, how long should I keep them on the high quality feed before switching them over to 20% flock raiser? I've got them with food 24/7, again because they started off slow. How long should it be before I start limiting their feed?
They're healthy and active, bouncing all over the place and climbing up and down on a box in their brooder. I had to put in two juvenile coturnix quail roosters to teach them how to bird, as they were unable to figure out their food dishes at first. It's pretty adorable to see the odd quad get along, with the quail zipping in and out of the gangly turkey legs. I think I'll probably keep the quail with the turkeys for a few months, to continue to teach them how to bird, especially once I move them outside.
I want to put them out in a tractor in a month, when they are approximately 8 weeks old. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to get them to learn to forage for food on the ground. When I raised meat chickens, I would feed them twice a day and just scatter the food on the ground so they had to scratch for it and stay active and behave like real chickens. Will this technique work on turkeys?
I'm not in a hurry to raise the biggest critters possible. I want to process in September, and I'll be happy with whatever size they reach by that time. It looks like I have a jake and a hen, so there will be a size difference anyway. I've processed chickens before, but never anything as large as a turkey. Are there any good threads/blogs/etc about how to process birds that size?
Thanks in advance for all the help!
