Need advice on raising/feeding outdoor penned poults.

[TurkenItUp209]

Today is day 23 for my hen and her clutch of 26 eggs (was 27 but one rolled out two days ago and I brought it inside and candled to see a live moving embryo so I put it in the incubator).

She is in a 10x12 pen which I have "poult proofed" lined the chainlink from the inside with 1/4" mesh. She can see the other turkeys I have but I decided to separate them at this point another tom and hen. I'm worried about the huge tom smashing them. Would the non-broody hen be a threat to the poults?

I am wondering, should I let the other hen in with her? The eggs are half hers, is there any benefit to letting two hens take care of them? I have 28% gamebird starter crumble....best way to feed that many chicks? It's in the high 80's-mid 90's during the day and we have wild birds running around with poults so I'm not going to worry about temps.

Any tips/advice you guys that have raised outdoor poults have would be outstanding.

Thanks!

 

[Koeyohte]

I am reading that 26% and up is great for chicks.

 

[mrclif]

I have two hens together one of em clutch has hatched already the other is still sitting, the poults get on top of the one sitting and stay around her as much as the mom. I had to seperate from the daddy even though he's gentle as can be he was trying to do his love dance when the poults were around him.
Best protien feed I can find is 24% around here.

 

[ivan3]

I have two hens together one of em clutch has hatched already the other is still sitting, the poults get on top of the one sitting and stay around her as much as the mom. I had to seperate from the daddy even though he's gentle as can be he was trying to do his love dance when the poults were around him. Best protien feed I can find is 24% around here.

x2 We keep feed and water pretty close to the hens, they do the `learnin' for the poults. If you want to supplement their protein, get them used to you, hand feed them moths.