What turkey woudl you suggest for backyard flock ?

[Cottage Rose]

Quote:
Can you clip their wings to prevent them from going over fences?

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

yes you can clip the wings. Once they mature they stay put and rarely get out.

Steve

 

[HappyHatch'en]

I wouldn't clip their wings, it is their ability to fly quickly up-wards that could save them from a preditor. Besides they are dumb, if food and their lodging is a 4 star motel, why would they leave? As long as you have a place they will roost in the evenings, they should be fine. JMO

 

[jasonm11]

You will never keep them o the ground if they are scared/startled. You can clip the lead feathers on one wing just like on a chicken but they can and will still get airborn and into a tree if they want to. The best suggestion I have been given is to feed them in their coop/run only and carry a bucket with treats. Be pretty regular about the time of feeding and they will go right to the feeder every night. I just let mine loose today for the first time. THe four hens all went back to the run with little trouble. The tom is very skittish and took alittle chasing before he finally figured out how to get in the run. We tried to chase/herd him for almost 45 minutes and he finally went into the run. He was close several times but to dumb to know how to get in. I found that by opening the doo inward it finally let him in and the other turkeys could not seem to find their way out.

 

[KOTurkeyRanch]

Bronze, Royal Palm, Bourbon Red

 

[TinyBirds]

I wasted hundreds of dollars on all the various breeds of turkeys last year, because they ended up sleeping in the trees (refused to go in the coop w/ the chickens) and then they either got eaten by predators at night, or left for the woods. The only ones that survived were the commercial whites, but only because they were too heavy to get up in the trees, and I lifted them into the coop each night. Sooooo, anyhow, the only breed I didn't try yet is the midget white. It sounds like that one might be perfect for us, sort of a combination and hopefully (cross fingers) they won't sleep in the trees too....this is my last try though!

 

[Cottage Rose]

Does keeping them penned up full time as youngsters help them more oriented to going back into the pen or not?
I get the whole thing about routine and feeding in the pen at night but do some turkeys pay that no mind?
We have too many predators around here. I'm a real stickler for PM protection.
I'm going to try Midgets and Beltsvilles.
My hubby also remarked that if I got the dark turkeys if they went off into the woods they could get shot.
Also how far do they wander if allowed to be loose?
My ducks and geese never go beyond our mowed meadow...but what about turkeys?
They seem more independent.

 

[Olive Hill]

If any turkey wanders into the woods it could be shot. I would not expect a hunter to say, oh but wait, that's a white turkey so I won't shoot it. They'll bag it and tag it and take their smilin' picture with it just the same -- and then they'll probably go around telling their friends they shot an albino turkey. How rare!

Turkeys can wander great, GREAT distances. I have been on turkey pursuits on the quad before. Luckily they can be herded well enough. That said, once ours were homed (it took MONTHS, but we brought the original trio home as older juveniles. The young'uns that grow up with the flock seem to know this as home from the very start) they don't go anywhere. The only time they leave the mowed areas are to make sneaky nests in the brush and then they only go about 3 feet off the mowed area into the underbrush. We have quite a bit of protection from trees, garden areas, roosting spots and free-choice feed though, so they also don't have much motivation to go anywhere.

As for the coop. Can't really answer your question there, but I think generally turkeys just tend to have a mind of their own. If they have the opportunity to pick their own outdoor roosting spot they will happily do so and breaking them can be difficult with any measures short of just penning them up where you want them 24/7. After being homed our original adults went back to roost in their tractor at night for some time. Maybe a week, but eventually they found what they determined to be a prime tree branch and have been there ever since. They picked a really good spot and *knock on wood* haven't been bothered so I let them use it. We too have predator pressure here, but the turkeys seem to be really good at taking care of themselves. That said, I have Narragansetts. IME the white varieties are probably going to be more prone to attack regardless of the time of day simply because of their color. The white birds always seem to get picked off first. Which is one of the reasons we chose Narrs to begin with.

 

[KOTurkeyRanch]

Dont give them a reason to leave. Love them, feed them, water them, protect them

 

[TinyBirds]

After trying ducks, turkeys, guineas, etc, we finally discovered geese. Geese seem even more tame than chickens! (more like a pet dog that follows us around - even as babies!) So if you want something hardy that you won't lose to a predator within a year, and don't want to keep in a small pen, then I highly recommend geese! Our 2 geese are very loud (not even sure if they're Chinese or something else) but they lay lots of HUGE eggs, and they seem to keep the hawks away. At one point we had bobcats and foxes coming mid-day, taking sometimes 5 birds a day, but they never got the geese either. We had to put up an electric fence along the creek-edge to keep out the bobcat, but now all seems to be well....cross fingers.