I hatched out my first ever turkeys year before last and love them!
I had one pair of White Midgets and 2 Palms (one Royal and one Blue)
I sold the Midgets and kept the 2 Palms both females.
They spent
all of last spring thru fall wandering off calling for a mate
and hiding nests in the tall meadow grass that surrounds my barnyard area.
They would be gone for days and weeks at a time until i could find their nests and break them up.
One finally got picked off by predators, my favorite of course...so I've learned turkeys
have a LOT of wild in them and I assume the only way to keep them home isin covered pens.
I also raise ducks and geese and all are kept in predator proof sheds at night.
When the turkey hens were here they would likewise go in for the night.
How does everybody deal with this?
Do you all keep your turkeys in covered pens all the time? How do you prevent the hens from wandering off?
I recently purchased a yearling Royal Palm tom which my hen feel instantly in love with
I suppose due to being alone since last fall. I was hoping with a tom around she might stick closer to home but
I suppose the instinct is strong to hide their nests and this might not make any difference.
Any advise from experienced turkey keepers most appreciated.
I have a 5 foot fence around my property, with wire dug 18" underground, to prevent coyotes and dogs from digging in, so it's relatively daytime-predator-proof inside, except for hawks and eagles. There is 5 foot cross-fencing inside the property, and each flock get's an acre that is part pasture and part wooded, so they have plenty to do and enough room to run until they're tired, which they do frequently. There are several types of nest areas or nest boxes set up for them, so hopefully they will use them (mine are 8 months old, and haven't started breeding or laying yet, being so far north in WA state). I keep the turkeys together with the chickens that they were brooded with, so they are a bonded flock and don't like to go too far away from their less-flighted flock members. The hens that are exceptionally curious about what's outside of their yard have their wings trimmed enough that they can still fly up to their roosts, but it takes enough effort that they rarely fly over their fences. The hens that don't explore outside much don't have their wings trimmed. The toms tend to stay with the hens, so no need to trim their wings. On the very rare occasion that they get into my neighbor's pasture, his livestock guardian dog barks an alert but doesn't hurt them, so I'm very lucky in that respect. The LGD keeps the predators out of that pasture, and my neighbor loves my turkeys. At night, they go into a fully enclosed run that is ~ 12X20 feet, with a concrete floor, solid roof, 2 solid sides in the direction of most winds, and 2 welded wire sides (2X4" openings). The bottom 2 feet of the wire sides have 1/2" hardware cloth attached to prevent raccoons from sticking their hands in and grabbing a bird, so it's been quite predator proof (we don't have weasels or snakes to worry about). The concrete floor is first covered with 1/2" foam interlocking tiles (like you see on gym floors) to prevent injury when they jump off the roosts, and is then covered by 4-8" of "white shavings" (a local mix of several woods, but no cedar). The roosts are 5-6 foot off the floor, and there is a sturdy table beside them (with padding on top) for those birds that want a mid-level stair. There is no enclosed house, but in the Pacific NW we never get temps below 6 degrees, and rarely below 25, so they're very comfortable with just overhead cover and wind protection. If the wind is severe I do attach sheets to the wire, which decreases the wind speed and retains the warmth significantly.
Before I got heritage turkeys I took some classes on raising them, and was told that they need to be kept in covered pens because they fly everywhere. But like you said, they still have a lot of wild in them, and I just can't keep them caged. I want my birds to have enough room to be active and happy, so I decided on this compromise. They don't get to fly as much as they want, but they can a little, and they can run and explore endlessly. The secure perimeter allows me to do this more safely, since trimming their wings also decreases their ability to escape predators. But even without the outer perimeter I would still probably risk it, as long as their yard was predator proof, and I had some way of controlling the stray dogs and coyotes approaching the yard. I don't fault others for keeping their birds in covered pens, as long as the pens are of adequate size and not over crowded, but it's just not for me. I realize that every morning when I let them out and see the joy they feel as they hop and play and fly in circles, so happy to be out of their pen.
I have a friend who also has her turkey flock in a fenced area, around 2 acres, but without the secure perimeter fence. She also cuts the wings on only the hens, but the toms sometimes fly out. Because the hens don't follow them, the toms immediately want to go back in, but tend to run along the outside fence line for a while before they figure out that they need to fly over to rejoin the hens. They are quite vulnerable to dogs and coyotes while they're focused on their hens, so my friend got some electronet to create a perimeter around the turkey area, about 15-20 feet outside the fence line. That keeps predators away from the frantic boys until they figure out what they have to do, or until someone escorts them to a gate.
I avoid trimming the wings on the boys because they are so heavy. They would crash land hard when they jump down from their roosts if they didn't have their wings to catch the air and slow them down. The hens crash land for the first 1-2 days, but are light enough to control the landing with practice. Luckily, the boys like to stay with the girls, so usually only the girls need to have their roaming habits controlled.
