Are you considering raising turkeys as pets for your family or their meat and eggs? Turkeys can be wonderful additions to any homestead or small farm. If you have raised chickens, raising turkeys will be just as easy and rewarding.
More than just a hot commodity during the holidays, turkeys are curious, loveable, and natural explorers that can bring new life into your property and add profit to your farm throughout the rest of the year, too.
Ready to start raising your turkey flock? Here is how to raise young poults to mature adults in your backyard.
Getting Started Raising Turkeys: What You Need to Know
Raising turkeys is very similar to raising chickens. If you have experience raising a flock of chickens, you have many skills necessary to raise turkeys. If you can believe it, turkeys are more social creatures than chickens, requiring a slightly higher level of care and attention.
As young turkeys, they can be more vulnerable than chicks. As they grow older, they will need more space than chickens. While raising turkeys has a bit of a learning curve, it is easy to catch on and fall in love with the raising process.
Choosing a Turkey Breed: Heritage vs. Commercial Breeds
What turkey breed should you raise? If you want to start raising turkeys, you need to think about your overall goals and needs? Will you be raising your turkey as a pet? Are you looking to sell it for its meat and eggs?
Do you want to raise turkeys the following year? Do you plan to breed your birds? Some turkey breeds do not reproduce naturally. If this is the case, you may need to buy eggs or poults every spring.
Commercial varieties such as a Broad Breasted White and Broad Breasted Bronze can grow fast and produce moist and meaty breasts in 20 weeks. These birds are mainly raised in poultry houses with reduced access outside. The rapid growth cycle allows them to be affordable to produce and sell.
Heritage turkey breeds are not known to grow super large, but their meat has tons of flavor. Heritage breeds include Bourbon Red, Black Spanish, Royal Palm, Narragansett, and Blue Slate. While the market for heritage breeds is smaller than commercial breeds, they can go for a higher price.
Bourbon Red Turkey Straight Run
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Royal Palm Turkey Straight Run
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Narragansett Turkey Straight Run
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Heritage breeds can breed on their own. Heritage hens have a natural motherly instinct. They can lay eggs in the spring and early summer and produce one egg per day or every other day.
Once you figure out your goals for raising turkeys, look for a reputable breeder or hatchery and make sure the turkeys come from a stock that is free from disease. Hatcheries can provide you with healthy poults and eggs locally or through the US Postal Service.
How to Raise Turkeys From a Young Age: Brooding Turkey Poults
When brooding baby turkeys, also called poults, you will need about one square foot per poult in the brooder. Ensure there is enough airflow to keep the litter dry and avoid any drafts. Using large wood shavings as your litter reduces the dust in the brooder and the risk of respiratory infections. This litter can absorb moisture well.
Little Giant, Chick Brooder Kit
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Are you looking for a budget brooding option? All you need is a cardboard box or plastic tote and a secure place to hang your heat lamp over the brooder at least 18 inches off the ground. Raise the lamp as your young birds keep growing.
10" Aluminum Heat Lamp Brooder, 300W
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Durvet, Supreme Lighting Heat Lamp Bulb 250W
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In the beginning, keep your temperature around 95º F during the first week. Lower the temperature by 5 degrees every week until your young turkeys have a complete set of feathers, usually around the 6-8 week mark. You can move them to a bigger, more permanent housing option when they are fully feathered.
Turkey poults are slightly more aggressive than broiler chicks, especially when the brooder is crowded. If you seem to have problems with poults pecking at each other, consider using a red heat bulb, which is known to reduce packing, and the turkeys sleep better.
When you get your poults, teach them how to drink water by dipping their beaks in the water, so they know where it is. Keeping a few marbles at the bottom of the waterer can help prevent accidental drowning.
During the brooding stage, poults need a turkey starter feed. Excellent starter feed for your poults should have at least 28 percent protein and can include medication against coccidiosis, especially if you plan to raise outdoor birds.
Keep an eye on your poults during the first few days and ensure they eat and drink correctly. Also, check they have enough space and their temperature is just right.
Housing and Fencing Turkeys
Wild turkeys can be found foraging on forest floors, grasslands, and swamps. Domesticated turkeys can thrive in a portable coop for rotational grazing, be raised free-range, or live a healthy life in a large coop, shed, or barn.
Raising a turkey to maturity can require about 3-4 square feet per turkey if raised in a confined area. If you are raising them free range, you will need at least 100 square feet per bird. Keeping your birds confined and providing some outdoor access can reduce the required outdoor space.
One of the most important aspects of proper housing is a well-ventilated space to protect your birds from the natural elements and keep them safe from predators. While turkeys are larger than other poultry, they are still vulnerable to predators, especially free-range turkeys.
Use a portable electric fence for added protection if you have a flock raised in pastures. If your turkeys are confined in a coop but want to give them some outdoor space, you can use an affordable wire fence run to keep them active and protected.
If you plan on raising turkeys for meat, you need to consider their instinct to roost. Roosting can cause bruising and breast blisters. Some commercial breeds can be very heavy, making roosting difficult and harmful. Instead, keep a deep layer of dry litter so they can huddle deep in the litter and remain comfortable.
When raising heritage breeds, you need to consider their ability to fly. Heritage turkeys can fly pretty high and may require clipping their wings to keep them in place.
Feeding and Watering
Growing turkeys will need a changing diet as they grow. Male turkeys, also called toms, can eat up to 100 pounds of feed, and turkey hens can eat 60 pounds when they are ready for market.
According to the USDA, to add enough weight, larger turkey breeds eat about 1 ½ pounds of feed per day for toms and 0.8 pounds for hens. Medium breeds can eat about 1 ¼ pounds per tom and 0.6 pounds per hen. Smaller breeds can eat about ¾ pounds per tom and ½ pound per turkey hen.
When feeding turkeys, give them a feed ration specific to them instead of generic poultry or broiler chicken feed since these may not meet their recommended nutritional requirements. Turkey owners can slowly lower the protein concentration in feed as the birds grow.
Experts recommend feeding poults a higher protein feed, around 22 percent protein than adult turkeys during the first four to six weeks, and lowering that as they grow. Birds around ten weeks of age may be fed with 19 percent protein. When your birds are 12 weeks or older, the feed protein concentration can be lowered to 16 percent. You may decide to keep the protein concentration higher if you are trying to reach butchering weight faster.
If you are allowing your birds to roam outdoors in your pasture, you can provide turkeys with grit along with their feed. Grit is essential for their gizzard to function correctly.
Little Giant Plastic Poultry Waterer
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Preventing Diseases and Issues
Experts recommend keeping turkeys away from other birds. Why? Blackhead, a harmful protozoan disease, can harm turkeys and be passed through contact with other infected chickens.
Chickens are generally resistant to blackheads but can carry the disease. While turkeys can be raised on the same property, they should ideally have their own housing and equipment. Reach out to your local extension to see if blackhead is an issue where you live and if raising a mixed flock makes sense.
Marketing Turkey Eggs and Meat
Turkey products are very popular during Thanksgiving and Christmas and wane in popularity outside of that. However, turkeys can produce numerous delicious products such as bacon, ground, and sausage turkey.
A significant part of marketing these products involves educating the customer about the benefits of buying turkey products, including its rich, homegrown taste. Farmers can go beyond these selling points and teach customers the best ways to cook turkey meat, such as slow-roasting, basting, and other techniques and recipes.
In terms of eggs, hens can start laying eggs at around 32 weeks. In comparison, chickens can start laying chicken eggs around the 20-week mark. Turkeys can lay up to 120 eggs during the peak season (January through June).
While turkey eggs will not be able to produce fluffy textures in your recipes compared to chicken eggs, they can still be helpful in recipes that require a thicker ingredient. Raising turkeys from poult to pot can bring a profitable value stream for farmers.
Keep Your Turkeys Healthy with Wilco Farm Stores
If you plan to own turkeys at home, you need the right supplies, feed, and equipment. Give your birds the best chance with the perfect backyard environment. Backyard turkeys can get all the poultry essentials from Wilco Farm Stores.
