Turkey housing for 20 Heritage Breed. PICS Welcome!!

[Megan Powers]

Hi all!

After a year of trial and error on my chicken coop (and lots of blood, sweat and tears) it was upgraded to high functioning status a couple of months ago for my flock of 7 chickens. (Just in time for the arrival of 18 baby chicks. Back to the drawing board)

However, I have 20 Heritage breed turkeys arriving on August 25th and decided I would consult the wonderful BYC community for input before I waste my time and tears on something that won't work. I live in Central Virginia. Winters can get down into the single digits on occasion, but mostly hover around freezing at night. I have searched through all the threads and have seen that some turkeys won't even sleep in a coop that has been built for them, and some love it. Mine will be in a hen pen to protect from predators, but there is no tree there for them to roost in if they feel inclined. That being said, I plan to build a coop and hope they choose to use it.

My questions about the coop:

1. For 20 turkeys, that will have a VERY large fenced area to roam in during the day, what dimensions should the coop be, including height? (I understand some breeds like to roost as high as 14'?!)

2. I currently have an automatic coop door for the chickens and it has been a life saver. Is this worth getting for the turkeys now? OR should I wait and see if they even go in the coop.

3. Assuming the turkeys will be 8 weeks old by the end of October, can they go outside and into the coop then? I imagine our temps would be in the 50's during the day and 40's at night.

4. I have an old barn, 25' high, that has 3 sides and an open front. If I do not need a completely enclosed coop, I'm thinking of putting roosting bars in the stall for them and fence around it. Thoughts?

I would LOVE to see pictures of everyone's turkey housing, roosts and brooders.

Thank you!!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Your turkeys will need a minimum of three sides and a roof to protect them. My roosts are 3, 4, and 5 feet off the ground in the shed which is 10x12 and comfortably hold up to about 15 for roosting, so yours should be slightly larger or at least longer to hold more roosts. Your barn sounds like it should work well.

Mine also have a low roost in the run and some choose to roost out there on certain nights. I use 2x4 for roosts, 4 up, outside the roost is a tree branch. My pop door stays open year round.

If your poults are acclimated to those temperatures and feathered mostly they should be okay out there if you get them used to it before you leave them out at night.

 

[Megan Powers]

Thank you so much!! This has been very helpful and is pointing us in the right direction. Off to Lowe's this morning.

Do you find that the sand in the coop is best for easy cleanup? Ours will be built on dirt so we thought of either leaving as dirt or covering in sand.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Our shed was built on dirt. I was going to use shavings but they become soak and smelly pretty quickly, so we switched to sand. I have a kitty litter scoop taped to a handle and a muck out tool used for horses for the cleaning. We do it daily takes 5-10 minutes, we top off the sand yearly. For us it was a better option.

If you leave just dirt it will become a slippery poop mess pretty quickly.