raising turkeys

[ydalhsif]

i am thinking about getting turkeys. are they hard to raise? i have raised guineas,chickens,ducks, and geese.

 

[Frosty]

That depends on who you ask... a lot of folks will tell you that they are delicate and hard to start. I have always treated them like chicken chicks.

it's worked for me for the 17 years.

 

[thaiturkey]

We started to raise turkeys in March and haven't regretted a minute of it, apart, perhaps, from the day when a poult died through my own stupidity.

I can't compare turkey rearing with any other kind of poultry but the basic principle seems to be to protect the newly hatched from the elements for at least eight weeks and feed them a high protein diet. So far, we haven't used an incubator. The hens have set and one of them was selected to be mother to the chicks. That relieved us of the job of teaching them to feed and standing with our necks twisted to one side looking for birds of prey.

You can't beat natural childbirth.

 

[Giammona farm]

Wild turkeys seem to be the hardest animals I have ever raised but domesticated ones seem a lot easier.

 

[Lagerdogger]

After reading and hearing about how hard turkeys were to start and how fragile they were, I was hesitant. But after trying it, I felt terribly misled. I have found turkeys quite easy to start. Sprinkle some food on newspaper, dip their bill in the water and away they go. I had some mortality this year, I lost two poults suddenly at about one week, and had one that never got larger than a tennis ball and finally died. But I have 14 very entertaining birds left. I hope I am never without turkeys again. I'd give up all of our layering hens first!

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

As easy as chickens.

 

[Dogfish]

Just be a good steward to your turkeys and they'll do fine. I have two BBB's, which convinced me to get some Naragansetts. The hen and tom BBB's start yelping once they see me, and yelp louder if I don't pay them attention. Butcher day will be a bit hard for those two, and hard on me as well. Great birds, and not as dumb as you would think.

 

[Bantam Bodon]

I got my first turkeys last August and i love them and wish i would have had turkeys for years before this. I really dont think they are that hard to raise at all. I also heard horror stories about starting them but i really haven't run into any problems myself. If youve rasied all those other things, you should be just fine.