I've read Storey and a LOT of the threads here, but I still have a few questions that I hope you might be able to help with. We are getting 8 Narragansett eggs in a week. They will go into the incubator and then brooded in the basement. (We have been raising ducks and geese for about 6 years. We have them in a 1 acre-ish fenced area with a "hoop house" type night coop made from arched cattle panels covered with 1/2" hardware cloth with an attached shed that is only used at night.) My questions:
1. Do I or should I have the turkeys in a separate fenced area? We have 10 acres, so space is not an issue, more of a can they get along and should they get along? I could put them in the fenced "orchard" (no trees because the deer ate them all 3 years ago and we haven't replaced yet. LOL It is 100'x100' roughly. 5' fence, but will keep their flight feathers clipped regardless because the nearby road has crazy people on it.)
2. We plan on keeping a breeding set out of this if we can. Do we need to keep more than one hen with the single tom over the winter?
3. Do we need an actual solid structure for the turkeys or can we just cover part of a "hoop house" and throw some hay bales around the bottom in the winter? The ducks rarely use the shed attached to their night coop except in the most bitterly cold weather (-10 F, probably) and the geese never go in there that I've seen. I think we need some kind of separate structure for the turkeys because I don't want everyone too crowded at night. Or is this pointless to worry about because I will never get them to go in at night? (We call my son the duck whisperer because he walks outside every night and tells everyone to go inside and everyone troops in. LOL.) We have quite a lot of predators: mink, raccoons, weasel, hawks, bald eagles, coyotes, owls). We don't put our geese in the night coop typically unless it's really cold because the boogers eat eggs, but are good protection...like the mink they fought off. They usually stay out in the fenced area.
4. Piggybacking off number 3, should I just throw some covered roosts in the middle of the "orchard" and call it good?
Thanks for any advice you can give me!
1. Do I or should I have the turkeys in a separate fenced area? We have 10 acres, so space is not an issue, more of a can they get along and should they get along? I could put them in the fenced "orchard" (no trees because the deer ate them all 3 years ago and we haven't replaced yet. LOL It is 100'x100' roughly. 5' fence, but will keep their flight feathers clipped regardless because the nearby road has crazy people on it.)
2. We plan on keeping a breeding set out of this if we can. Do we need to keep more than one hen with the single tom over the winter?
3. Do we need an actual solid structure for the turkeys or can we just cover part of a "hoop house" and throw some hay bales around the bottom in the winter? The ducks rarely use the shed attached to their night coop except in the most bitterly cold weather (-10 F, probably) and the geese never go in there that I've seen. I think we need some kind of separate structure for the turkeys because I don't want everyone too crowded at night. Or is this pointless to worry about because I will never get them to go in at night? (We call my son the duck whisperer because he walks outside every night and tells everyone to go inside and everyone troops in. LOL.) We have quite a lot of predators: mink, raccoons, weasel, hawks, bald eagles, coyotes, owls). We don't put our geese in the night coop typically unless it's really cold because the boogers eat eggs, but are good protection...like the mink they fought off. They usually stay out in the fenced area.
4. Piggybacking off number 3, should I just throw some covered roosts in the middle of the "orchard" and call it good?
Thanks for any advice you can give me!
