How to Raise Turkeys

Whether you're looking to supplement your income or provide a tasty home grown meal for the family, you'll profit either way raising turkeys. The benefits are widespread and include a built- in pest control service. Turkeys eat bugs, mosquitoes, ticks and flies. No matter what your reason is for raising turkeys, there are just a few things you need to know to raise the roost.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Determine the breed of turkeys that you want to raise. For example Heritage Turkeys are the old standard turkey and are naturally bred and slow-growing but delicious. Large white or Broad Breasted Bronze produce a lot of meat quickly because their body was genetically altered in order to develop breast meat in large quantities.

2. Purchase day old turkeys (poults) in the spring. They are not very expensive and easy to begin with. Be sure to select males and females for breeding purposes.

3. Set up a brooding area. A children's plastic pool can work if it is lined with about one inch of wood shavings. Install two infrared heat lamps above the pool so the temperature is around 95 to 100 degrees. Once a week raise the lamps to reduce temperature by 5 degrees.

4. Supply brooding area with one large food and water container per 25 birds. A good game bird food will have about 30 percent protein. Remove brooding pool after a couple of weeks and prepare for the next size.

5. Create an 8- by 8-foot area to raise the turkeys for approximately four more weeks. Consider making a movable turkey roost to minimize manure build up. Just build it and move the roost with a tractor pull every other day to a fresh location. Mount a branch inside about 1 to 2 feet off the ground and watch for perching signs, which means they are ready to roost.

6. Go outside and play. Once the turkeys are 6 weeks old and the temperature is above 75 degrees, they should go outdoors to take dirt baths and flap their wings freely. An area 75 by 75 feet can hold around a dozen turkeys. Use a poultry netting or woven wire field fence to keep predators away.

7. Allow 8 week old turkeys to roam freely in pasture. Keep fresh food and water available. An average adult will eat about one pound of feed a day. It takes 3 1/4 pounds of feed to equal approximately 1 pound of live turkey weight.

Tips & Warnings

• Go natural and raise your turkeys without chemicals and hormones.

Resources

• Learn how to build a roost.

[hobomeadow]

on 10/14/2008 My turkeys are costing too much. Commercial non medicated feed is now over $15 per 50# what else can I feed them?