Pastured turkeys

[Mike Fronczak]

We currenly have chickens for eggs, & are most likey going to do some for meat next year in movable pens, following our cows.. I know the chickens need about 4 sq ft per bird. Now my question, a neighbor built & is selling a 4x12' movable pen 4' tall. Which chickens dont need it that tall so its just added weight to move, but it would be good for turkey (I assume). He is only asking $ 50, it was built this spring of PT wood frame with 1" chicken wire, my guess is the materials to build an new one will be more than he is asking for it. The other question is how many turkey will it hold, figuring on mature bird this time next year for butchering.

 

[faykokoWV]

I guess that would depend on which breed of turkey you're looking at, how crowded you want them to be and how often you are going to move the thing.

 

[Mike Fronczak]

My thinking is to move it every day or couple days just as a chicken one. My thought is buy 6 turkey chicks in the spring, my thought is 4-6 birds would be fine, but I'm new & don't want to waste my time and money. Nor do I want to create a problem with the. Turkey either.

 

[faykokoWV]

My thinking is to move it every day or couple days just as a chicken one. My thought is buy 6 turkey chicks in the spring, my thought is 4-6 birds would be fine, but I'm new & don't want to waste my time and money. Nor do I want to create a problem with the. Turkey either.

That should work

 

[wsmoak]

The space sounds about right. I have three Royal Palms in a 5x10 tractor (3' tall). Four would be fine, six would start to get crowded.

*However* ... they are not happy in there. The chickens do great in tractors, they eat, drink, sunbathe, etc. All the turkeys do is pace the side closest to me and scratch pitifully at the wire while chirping at me to LET THEM OUT.

I'm also concerned about the chicken wire. If it's on the sides, I bet the turkeys will mangle and possibly even break it. But for that price, you can add new wire and still be paying less than it would have cost to build.

-Wendy

 

[Celie]

Turkeys really do not do well in confinement as they do in open pasture. I let mine free range during the day and give them high roosting places at night. They like to roost high, really high. Some of the youngest ones and heaviest like to roost only 6 feet high on a fence. I tried to pen a few up to fatten them up for a couple months until harvesting them for Thanksgiving, but they were so miserable, 5 turkeys in a 10x10 pen, that they got depressed, stopped eating and stopped strutting or gobbling. I let them out and they are doing fine again. The only turkeys I would confine to a tractor would be a BB or maybe a couple Midget Whites! But that's just me.

I live on a dead end private road, on 5 acres and surrounded by trees and woods on 3 sides. We have lots of predators, so the chickens, ducks and Geese are trained to roost in the barn at night and we close all of the barn doors from dark-thirty till morning, but the turkeys, all 33 of them stay close to the house and perch high out of the way of predators. We do not yet have a lot of the property fenced, but the house and about 2 acres are fenced, so the gates are closed and latched. Turkeys are very smart birds and know they are safe inside the fence, so they stay safe.