Question on breeds

[ss91]

What would be a good meat bird breed that would give me good size turkeys (around 20#'s cleaned) to butcher but is a breed that is also able to breed? The giant whites sound great as they grow fast and get large but they are unable to breed from what I have read. I would like to get 15 or so this spring keep a Tom and 3 or 4 hens and butcher the rest. I plan on trying incubating and hatching some eggs the following spring. Also to keep a tom and 3 or 4 hens over the winter how large of a coop and a run would be good for this? Thank you for any help, I have hatched quail, chukars, pheasant and chicken but this will be my first try with turkeys.

 

[A_Fowl_Guy]

@R2elk or @007Sean might be able to give you some advice.

 

[feedman77]

Hatching turkeys is no different than anything else you have hatched.

If you get away from the broadbreasted variety just leaves heritage. If interested in those look at bourbon red, bronze, or blue slates. Tom's should get close to the dressed weight you want. But may take close to a year to get there.

If you get broadbreasted and save some hens they will lay eggs. Put a heritage tom over them. They can mate ok. The broadbreasted tom just gets to big to complete the task.

But have not done this so not sure how that cross would turn out.

 

[R2elk]

What would be a good meat bird breed that would give me good size turkeys (around 20#'s cleaned) to butcher but is a breed that is also able to breed? The giant whites sound great as they grow fast and get large but they are unable to breed from what I have read. I would like to get 15 or so this spring keep a Tom and 3 or 4 hens and butcher the rest. I plan on trying incubating and hatching some eggs the following spring. Also to keep a tom and 3 or 4 hens over the winter how large of a coop and a run would be good for this? Thank you for any help, I have hatched quail, chukars, pheasant and chicken but this will be my first try with turkeys.

Adult heritage toms will dress in the 15 lb. to 24 lb. range depending on which variety you get. The hens will be much smaller.

The BB varieties will get to weight much sooner (4 to 6 months) than the heritage varieties. The turkey industry uses artificial insemination because it is efficient and not harmful to the hens. BB turkeys can breed naturally but are not efficient at it and it is best accomplished by using yearlings (both toms and hens) as the breeding stock.

I recommend a minimum of 10 sq. ft. of coop space per adult turkey. I consider 50 sq. ft. of additional run space to also be a minimum. I keep approximately a minimum of 500 sq. ft. of run space for my turkeys who also get to free range daily on a fenced 2 acre area.

I try to keep a minimum of 4 to 5 hens for one tom but a single tom can handle ten hens easily.