Square footage for Royal Palms

[Hoosierchickengal]

Hi All,
Just have been offered an RP tom and 2 hens in exchange for keeping a pair for a lady who's brother wants them but doesn't have his place set up yet. We are actually in process of building our poultry pens now and was wondering what kind of square footage per bird to figure for the turkey run and house.

Lol, wasn't planning on turkeys yet, but I really would love to have heritage breeds on our place! They are gorgeous!

 

[ColbyNTX]

Don't bother with the fancy hen house for the turkeys because the don't usually use one. Turkeys like to be roosted out in the open. They do need some shelter from the sun and such but something more like a pole barn. 10X10 is the smallest I would recomend for a trio. You can ge a 10X10 dog pen at TSC for $200 and have a pen in an hour but don't forget wire to cover the top because they will fly out! You could also build one out of 1" PVC for a quick, temp pen if your in a hurry.

 

[Hoosierchickengal]

Sorry it took so long for me to reply. Lately when I've not been at work, I've been helping work on the run and helping my daughter get her chicks purchased.

Thank you for letting me know about not bothering with a large hen house and the roosts. Sounds like what we have so far will be just perfect for them. I was ready to get the wire for our chicken coop, so went ahead and got some for the turks too. Their pen is about 500 square feet, with one 8x10 foot shaded section. So far they only have a small temporary shelter, as they came earlier than we were expecting, but the weather is nice anyway. We were able to enclose the top with some recycled kevlar mat, which will provide additional shade and keep them from flying out.We haven't got the roosts done yet, but have a couple of recycled awnings to put over them when we get them finished.

Unloading them was an adventure-the toms are a bit feisty this time of year, lol, but everyone seems to be settled in well tonight.

 

[ColbyNTX]

If you haven't had time to build a roost yet, you could use something as simple as a saw horse for now just to get them off the ground.

 

[Hoosierchickengal]

Great idea!We will use those in mean time!Thanks

 

[Jake Levi]

Umm, climater protection in Hoosierland is quite different from Texas, very different,

some shade yes, also blocking from winter winds and cold, a hoop house will work well, top, sides and one end closed. sawhorses do work well, so do cedar posts on a sawhorse legs, 2' square nest boxes, with straw,

TSC has a book, Chicken Coops which shows a number of hoop houses.

You can block flying by cutting the primaries on both wings, and/or clipping off the last digit on the wing when young.

The price has gone up at TSC, on kennels, looking at ~ 280 now, the netting works great for covering, I am going to be making a couple of the smaller hoop houses, inside center of about 7', 20' long, and about 16' wide, drive ree bar in the ground and the bottoms of the PVC slide over them, drill a hole in the end of each PVC and thread a wife through the hole and tightly around the ree bar. Two lengths of PVC with a joint in the center , sides of the pen are welded wire cattle panels, can also use 6' high horse wire, 16' wide on the pen, and as long as you want to make it,

lots of variations, good luck with them and enjoy,

 

[ColbyNTX]

Quote:
I know it is different in hoosier land than Texas and I said the 10X10 would be the smallest size. I bought a 10X10 this weekend from TSC for $199.99. I have also seen the light RP's get over a 6' fence with both wing clipped pretty short. The cold doesn't bother turkeys but you need to build a shelter for your area. Hoosierchickengal is getting some turkeys soon and just needed some ideas for a quick shelter. I sure she will make a winter shelter for her birds but it is spring and she has a bunch of time to worry about that.

 

[Hoosierchickengal]

Hi Jake-thanks for the suggestions and the book recommend.

We were actually thinking about doing a hoop house for their permanent shelter, as the temporary one we put up is not large enough. They don't seem to care right now while the weather is mild. When it's not raining buckets (like the night they arrived-Murphy's Law) they just roost on the top of it anyway.Winter will be a different story though. We actually used to live in Michigan about 45 minutes from where you are, so I know what your weather is like, lol. Here, it's a little less snowy but a lot windier, so that is my one concern about the hoop house-if it will hold up to the wicked winds.It's also much warmer in summer (usually in the 90s), so shade is VERY important here.

We are making larger permanent runs for the poultry around the garden area. Part of our runs are the re-claimed six foot chain link perimeter fence of our garden (we are big on recycling) and the other part is six foot poultry wire (not chicken wire-I'm not fond of the bendable stuff for large projects).We are going to run electric along the top and bottom to discourage predators from digging under and my daughter's mischievous horse from leaning on it, since the run also borders the pasture.Not sure how bad predator issue other than strays will be here. Our garden area is in the open with really nowhere for anything to hide, and we have a few watch dogs that keep most critters out. At least there are no mink or Bald eagles like our last place.A mink got a number of our chickens and a Bald eagle got one of our cats (I saw it happen).

I decided not to bank on the fact that their wings are clipped, and we installed some reclaimed matting for a run roof. I'm glad I didn't, since the gal that brought them said they were making it about six feet off the ground when she was trying to catch them to bring them over.

I might make a sorta hoop house out of a couple of pig panels. Just scored a bunch for half off store price from craigslist, and eight foot posts for a buck a piece!

 

[Hoosierchickengal]

Hi Colby. Thanks for the suggestion on the dog pen. We might need to divide the flock if the toms don't settle down, so that would be a good option. I'm assuming moving stresses them and slows down or halts egg production? Haven't seen any eggs yet.

 

[Hoosierchickengal]

One gal is squatting though