Turkeys In Thailand

[thaiturkey]

My wife and I are about to take some poults to begin a small venture raising birds for our table and, with luck, for sale to expats. here. This is very new to us and turkeys are not so common where we live in Thailand. So, I hope to gain some knowledge from the experts here and, in due course when I have some experience, return the favour to others.

Perhaps I could briefly set the scene for anyone not familiar with Thailand.

The climate here is similar to that of southern Florida. The dry winter season has temperatures from 20 to 30 Centigrade (maybe be down to 12 some nights) and is very dry. The wet season has heavy tropical storms and temperatures up to 40 some days. Many village families keep chickens that roam loose during the day. Dogs and cats also roam free. Snakes are common. Mosquitoes are a real curse. Corn poultry food is readily available, as is hedgerow vegetation and shop bought vegetables.

A male and four female poults will be ready for us to take very soon. I think that the recommended ratio is 10 hens to 1 stag so we may have to buy more. We are just adding the finishing touches to a coop that a neighbour built for us to start to ball rolling. It measures 2.5x2.5 metres with a height of between 1.75 and 2.00 metres under a single pitch corrugated metal roof. The floor, nesting shelf and walls are made from straight poles of green wood fresh from the jungle. Very rustic! This gives the advantage of good air flow but I shall need to line it with mosquito netting. Each wall has either a door, a wall or a hatch for the birds. I plan next to make a pen 2x2x2 metres using strong wire mess and cover part of the top with plastic netting for shade.

That's where we have got to just now. I am reading and Googling to gain knowledge but would also appreciate any good advice from members here. In particular, I have a few questions at the moment to which I cannot find answers:

1. Can inbreeding be a problem or can we breed from the original stock without refreshing the bloodline?

2. I know that hens can be clumsy mothers but must we keep the stag away from the poults?

3. Given the climate here, would we need to use a source of heat at night when he have very young poults?

4. We plan to add additional coops and pens as the flock grows and keep the stags separate from one another. is this either necessary or desirable?

5. Chicken feed is very easy to get here. Is that, with some green vegetables each day, sufficient for turkeys? I read that crushed garlic is good in the diet - is that correct?

Thank you in advance for any answers and other advice.

 

[the Old Rebel]

I am by no means an expert on turkeys, but I may have a couple of answers for you. Also my response will bump this back to the top for you, so maybe someone who knows more than I do can help you too.

As far as inbreeding is concerned, it depends on how inbred these poults are already. If it is first generation inbreeding, you should be fine. What I've noticed is that the more inbred they are, the weaker they are and the poorer their eyesight.

I've had toms (I believe you call them stags) take excellent care of their offspring, but I've also had them kill their offspring. My eastern wild is a WONDERFUL daddy, but my bourbon reds and bourbon red crosses have stomped on their little ones. So a good rule of thumb might be to keep them separated until the babies get some size on them (a couple of months or more).

If you've got a good mother, you shouldn't need additional heat. I'm trying to convert centigrade to Fahrenheit and not doing a very good job of it tonight. What does 12 degrees centigrade equal to in Fahrenheit, do you know?? Depending on what that is, I'd be surprised if she would lay eggs in the winter. Usually turkeys only lay for a season. That season varies though. For me here in the mountains of Western North Carolina where we have COLD winters, they usually lay from the end of April until about mid-September.

What kind of predators do you have there? You mentioned snakes. They shouldn't be a danger to your adult turkeys, but they might eat your poults and eggs, so your coop will need to be snake-proof or that could become quite a problem. I had a large Eastern king snake eat 17 eggs out from under my setting hen (not all at once of course). She was inside a house inside a pen and he still got to her. Needless to say he is quite a bit larger now.

What season are you in right now? What are your temperatures like? I could be wrong about this, but if your poults are very young, you will need a heat source for them since they don't have a mother with them. I believe the rule of thumb is 95 degrees Fahrenheit the first week, reduced by 5 degrees Fahrenheit each week until that temperature meets up with the outside temperature.

I hope this helps a little. Please feel free to PM me with more questions if I can be of any further help.

Good luck to you.

 

[thaiturkey]

Thanks, Old Rebel, for your helpful reply.

We shall start off with one young stag (tom) and four hens, all of them around eight weeks old and from the same brood. If in-breeding could be a problem in later generations, I will look for another stag and hens from elsewhere and mix the hens from one brood with the stag from the other and keep the 'families' in separate pens.

Regarding the behaviour of the stags to the chicks, it seems from what you say and from what I have been reading that I must treat each as an individual and act accordingly. Perhaps a sin bin pen will be needed if I get a bad one!

12 Centigrade (Celsius) is 54F (http://www.albireo.ch/temperatureconverter/). It drops to that here only for a few nights somewhere around mid December to the end of January. The chicks that will come to us were laid during that time. The owners kept them secure from mosquitoes at night and suspended an electric light bulb over them for a few days. I doubt whether that would be necessary now until we have our first hatch but, from what you are saying, I should be prepared with a heat source and an outdoor thermometer. Thank you for the rule-of-thumb temperature progression which I shall use when the time comes.

Snakes are common because we live quite rurally but most are bootlaces. The occasional cobra and python might be seen crossing a road and they are probably the ones to watch out for. I understand that turkey chicks can suffer badly from mosquito bites and that would be a problem here. On the other hand, poultry runs free around many homes here and, although they (gai ban - 'home chicken') are scrawny, they don't seem to suffer from the mozzies. Roaming dogs and cats might be a problem. Occasionally we see a scorpion. There are some lizards about 9 inches long with the tail that have nasty looking teeth but I don't know whether they would prefer chicks to their own smaller cousins. Other than that, most of the animal life that the birds will encounter is unlikely to be a problem in a clean, dry coop and pen.

We are about to start the rainy season. Temperature will reach 35-40 C (95-104F) by July. Night time temperatures are unlike to fall below 20C (68F) and will usually stay above that. I saw a fan in one of the featured coops on this board and may well fit a ceiling fan for the very hot days. During the rainy season we can have torrential downpours and some stunning thunder and lightning. Humidity can be high and the ground can be very wet. Usually, storms appear only every few days and the ground dries quickly. In line with Murphy's law, if we have arranged an evening party or BBQ in the garden, we will have three storms in the afternoon! On those occasions, the mud is no good to man nor beast.

Thank you again for your help!

 

[jenjscott]

I think the tom to hen ratio is more like 1 tom to about 5 hens. Many people who free range their birds let them all together during the winter, then separate them into breeding pens for the egg laying season.

 

[thaiturkey]

Thanks jenjscott, that's a more comfortable ratio to manage.

We now have 5 poults of uncertain gender with a promise from the supplier to swap a hen for a tom if we find that all of ours are hens.

Based on other advice here, once the new arrivals are settled, we shall look for another tom and some hens from a different supplier and then swap the toms to keep the bloodline fresh.

 

[Frosty]

Inbreeding isn't necessarily a problem. There are some folks who have had a 'closed' flock for many years and do not breed from outside sources. The thing with inbreeding... it can bring out weak traits, but can also bring out the strong traits. You just have to be prepared to cull the weak birds (just raise them and eat them, don't use those for breeding). Do a search on closed flocks, line breeding, and inbreeding and you can find more information on that. Have a few different pens and have a rotation plan, but after that you probably won't need to bring in outside turkeys unless you see a problem developing (and from what I have seen on strict inbreeding, the biggest problem would be decreased fertility in about 8 generations).

If you have a good mother hen, she'll keep the babies warm under her wings when they aren't out foraging (if you can let them forage). You may need to supplement the feed if it's chicken feed, turkeys are gamebirds and need higher protien. The breeder may be able to help you on that. For that matter, they may decide to eat the lizards and various bugs anyhow which would probably boost their protien intake.

I envy you living there... I spent 4 years on Guam and miss the weather, the plumerias, the coconut palms... (as I sigh and look out at 2 feet of snow in the yard...) Right now it's 20F (-7C), at least you won't have to worry about the water freezing!

 

[thaiturkey]

Many thanks for that Frosty. I now have some more research to do! I hope to have enough birds in due course to keep separate small flocks and, perhaps, allow them take turns to forage on our land so that might deal with the issue of inbreeding.

Sure enough, we don't need to worry about water freezing. About 32C today and warmer for me as I started work on the floor of the new coop. As you probably know, decent timber suitable for building is as rare as hens' teeth out here so I've had to do some foraging myself. Fortunately, the Japanese make very strong cases in which to ship machinery and I have found a good source of reclaimed material.

I didn't know that gai nuang were partial to meat. We have plenty of lizards for them to choose from and a few snakes if they are that way inclined. The chicks were very happy on their first full day with us feeding on plain corn and vitamin supplemented corn plus a helping of supermarket lettuce and wild greenery plucked from the land. It doesn't stay in them long though! The parents, who live just across the soi from us, are enormous birds and look very fit so I have hopes of a good flock myself as the chicks grow.

If you or any other member might be interested, I'll post some pics. from time to time to show their habitat and how they are getting on. I plan to shade the pen and coop with banana and papaya trees. As you will know, shade here is important to any living creature and it's directly under trees until mid afternoon.

Thanks again for your advice and suggestions.

 

[the Old Rebel]

Hi our friends from Thailand!!

Yes, I would LOVE to see pictures of your poults and coop and whatever else you'd like to post on here.

I really appreciate the effort you are putting into this to do what is right by your turkeys. I've had turkeys for eight years and find them FASCINATING!! We came by our firsts quite unexpectedly. Our neighbor at the top of the mountain purchased turkey poults from Murray McMurray and raised them. They let them free range. The hens went out in the woods and made nests. My neighbors found two of them, collected the eggs, and brought them into a portable pen. The hens took turns setting the eggs for several days. But then a neighbor's dog killed one of the hens and the other flew so far away she couldn't find her way back. So the neighbors brought their eggs down to my incubator.

When the babies hatched and started growing up, my neighbors never asked for them, so we built a big house and pen for them. When Bob would visit, he kept saying "Those aren't our turkeys". They had Royal Palms and Bourbon Reds. Although we had some bourbon reds, most of ours looked like the Eastern Wild turkey. We finally figured out that a wild hen must have shared the nest with the domestic birds. I still have two of those original birds. They'll be eight years old this summer. When I can, I'll post a picture of my Tom and his wife, Susan.

We've raised many, many turkeys over the years. We are CONSTANTLY learning something new.

I know my Tom is a very unusual guy. He was raised with a LOT of love, but I think he is just special in his nature. He actually raised two orphaned guinea hens by himself. I have pictures of him on the roost with the guineas under his big wings. I'll post those too when I have time. So I got spoiled to how he is and thought all toms would be like him. You can imagine our shock and surprise when we witnessed a cross-colored tom KILL his own offspring. So you are correct that you have to observe each individual and realize they are exactly that..... an individual with very unique personalities. I've NEVER had a tom that was aggressive to humans, but I've read about people who have. So you just never know.

I'm concerned about two things for you. Your birds will need a lot of protein. That's why normal chick feed isn't good enough for them. That's why folks are suggesting gamebird feed. But I'm not sure what you have available where you are. Corn won't be enough. You'll get all kinds of health problems without protein. At least that's what I've been told and, therefore, have lived by. The greens are good, but again that's not protein. So bugs and lizards are good, but the lizards could be poisonous or toxic to them. The older birds may kill the snakes..... or not. But I've never known them to eat them. The people who have the parent birds can help you more on this, because they know what is available. But deficiencies in diet can take time to manifest themselves, so I encourage you to learn all you can about that. Remember, too, if you are going to be eating your birds, you are going to be eating whatever they have eaten. I, myself, am a "natural" person. I prefer Mother Nature to man-made things, but we have no choice but to supplement our birds' intake, because we have more than our land can support.

I could go on and on, because I love turkeys sooooooo much. But I don't want to bore everyone to tears and I need to go take care of my mother who is 81-years-old and has Parkinson's Disease, Diabetes II, and severe dimentia.

Good luck with your birds and let us see those pictures!!

Hope you have a GREAT DAY!!

 

[jenjscott]

Yes, definitely post some pictures.
Old Rebel, I got RP x BR last year, and they have the wild turkey look, the shades vary from basic browns to almost black, and I know there weren't any wild turkeys involved.

 

[thaiturkey]

Thanks folks. I appreciate any advice that is offered. I'm new to this and, although this country is chicken crazy, I don't necessarily want to rely on local advice for our turkeys.

We have mixed corn with vitamin supplemented corn. I have decided to let them roam free on our land to see how they get on. However, at just a few weeks old and still missing mum, they may be too young to allow to forage. I'm starting to identify the different characters now. We have one that is less vociferous than the others. It looks just as healthy and feeds well but when the other 4 exchange whistles with me, this one just stands and stares. It also feeds mainly alone, perhaps going to the water while the others tuck into the feed. There is no sign of bullying or attack but I think I need to keep an eye on how it gets on.

I will start to take pics and post them. I have benefitted from seeing other members' pics. so it's only fair to give future newbies a chance to learn from my mistakes.