Will this work for my new Midget White poults?

[SIMZ]

Hello! We just brought home our first little midget white poults last night! We have two of them. They're 4 1/2 weeks old and I was expecting them to be much bigger than they are.

We have a 3 X 4 pen and attached 3 X 20 run that we used with our broody hen and chicks. Their light will be in it and it will be secure against predators. We're planning on putting a layer of sand over the dirt and putting shavings in the enclosure.

I'd so appreciate your experience and opinions on these questions:

Would the above described enclosure be ok to put them in now at 4 1/2 weeks?
Is it ok for them to be outside at this point as long as it's warm and dry?
How many weeks do they need heat?
We have chicks about the same age that are pretty much doing their own thing in a safe run and enclosure. From all that I'm reading turkeys seem to be so much more fragile than chicks. It seems that I need to be worrying and hovering about every little thing with the poults.


Thank you SO much!

 

[frank53061]

I am new this year to Turkeys myself but I have raised my 17 Red Bourbon Poults from 3 days old to over 11 weeks now and have gone threw the same things you are,
When they are Fully feathered and you have say 10 to 15 there body warmth will do them unless it is very cold at 6 to 8 weeks.
Once they were 6 to 8 weeks old fully feathered and the nights don't drop lower than the 60s at night I would take the heat source away I put mine on a timer when the nights were cold and the days were warm.
since you only have 2 birds you will have to be the judge.
Make sure you have a place to secure them out of the weather at night make sure to keep them dry as well.
I fed my Turkeys game starter they need the higher protein till 10 weeks of age I started to mix laying pellets at 8 weeks.
At 10 weeks I took them off the starter and fed only laying pellets with treats from time to time.
They love greens of different kinds.

Will you allow them to free range at some point if not supplying them with greens as they get older 8 to 10 weeks will help with there diet and cut back on feed cost.
Sounds like the Coop and run will be enough space for 2 Turkeys.
I raised Chics that I Incubated to be the same age as the Poults with out a mother to remind them to eat and drink I found that this helps and its funny the Chickens now have taken on some of the characteristics of the turkeys LOL and do not stray far from the Turkeys when I let them free range.
I just started free ranging at 10 weeks of age supervised.
There are numerous people here with a lot more knowledge than me and this is what has worked for me so far.
Most of this is what I have learned from this BLOG site they are a great bunch of people.
I hope I was of some help.

 

[SIMZ]

That's a HUGE help! Thank you!