If you’re able to on your homestead, I highly recommend raising turkeys. By far my favorite poultry, turkeys are a lot of fun to raise. Full of personality, and loving toward their humans, raising them from day-old poults is a lot of fun.
While I feel raising turkeys is definitely worthwhile to add to your backyard flock, and in many ways easier, and less messy, than raising chickens there are a few considerations to take because it isn’t quite the same as raising chickens.
How to Raise Turkeys
If you’ve raised chicks or ducklings, then you have a pretty good start on how to raise turkeys. Typically, you’ll begin with day-old baby turkeys, known as poults, and raise them in a brooder just like you would baby chicks.
What to Know About Raising Turkeys
Space Requirements
Turkey poults are fast-growing, and will initially need about two square feet per poult in the brooder box until about 8 weeks old. Unlike ducklings, you don’t have to worry about water mess, but you still need a high-sided, hard floor surface container to brood them in.
At 8 to 16 weeks, they will require a minimum of 3 square feet per bird. At 16 to 20 weeks of age, 5 to 8 square feet and up to market weight and beyond, at least 7 square feet, depending on the breed and size of the bird.
Free-ranging turkeys is always an option, keeping in mind predators. Domestic turkeys, especially heritage breeds can fly, however, so keep that in mind as well.
If you choose to house them, many people create a large pen with electric poultry netting can be the best way to protect your flock from predators while still allowing them to eat on pasture. A small coop with outdoor access or a tractor-type of housing is also adequate. It is not recommended to offer roosting bars in turkey housing simply because the larger commercial breeds are too heavy and all of them can suffer from blisters.
Brooding and Heat Requirements for Raising Turkeys
It’s worth noting that young poults are a little more fragile than chicks or ducklings, but not overly so. It can be beneficial to make sure the brooder is set up, and warm, and place some electrolytes in the water initially.
Young turkeys can be a bit more rough with each other, even more so than meat chicken breeds (especially Cornish). A red heat lamp is slightly more advantageous than a clear one simply because it will not disrupt their sleep as much.
For the best results use wood shavings in the brooder, keeping in mind these birds are quickly growing and will require a lot of space to flourish. Place a heat lamp near enough to heat the brooder box to 95°F for the first week. Each week, you can decrease the temperature by 5°F until the birds are fully feathered when they’ll be ready to move to their permanent housing.
Food and Water Requirements for Turkeys
When you bring your day-old turkey poults home, introduce them to the brooder, dip their beaks in the water dish, and be sure they have plenty of quality feed. Their feed should be free choice for the first several weeks and they should always have access to clean water.
Meat turkeys need more protein than chickens, making a game bird or turkey feed essential to meet their nutritional requirements. If possible, feed high-protein 28% game bird starter or turkey starter feed for the first eight weeks of life. After eight weeks of life, their protein requirements will diminish.
Proper feed for turkeys can be difficult to locate at feed stores. However, if you have a local feed store, you might ask if they can get it for you. If you can find it and continue feeding game bird/ turkey feed, that is absolutely best and will provide you with a better feed conversion. If you’re not, you can feed meat bird crumbles, though some will argue this isn’t a good idea.
Turkeys eat a lot. Of course, you can provide them with pasture once they’re outdoors so they won’t need quite as much feed. Turkeys love fresh grass. That said, be sure you’re providing grit for their gizzards to digest the roughage, it is essential.
It takes about four pounds of feed to give you one pound of turkey meat. Feed each bird at least a 1/2 cup per day of proper feed. If you feed them only game bird ration, you’ll feed approximately 75 pounds per heritage breed turkey before it’s ready for butcher. However, there are ways to reduce that amount and it’s simply an estimate for 28 weeks of raising a heritage breed.
Raising Turkeys for Meat
Turkeys are typically raised for meat, or breeding as their egg production isn’t particularly high. They’ll only lay about 100 turkey eggs per year, consume a lot of food, and are much older before they begin laying (around 7 months).
This isn’t to say that you can’t allow heritage turkeys hen to lay eggs if you have a tom or two and want her to hatch her own. Just don’t plan on raising them for eggs.
Unlike boilers, even production-breed turkeys such as broad-breasted white or bronze take an average of 16 weeks to grow out to slaughter weight. If you’re raising heritage breed turkeys, expect to almost double that time to somewhere between 25 and 30 weeks before they’re grown.
Production breed hens will grow to an average weight of about 15.5 pounds in about 14 weeks. A production breed tom will grow well over 30 pounds if left to grow out until about 18 weeks. How large you let either sex grow is more of a personal choice once they’re sizable.
Heritage-breed turkeys are a bit different. As I mentioned, they do take longer to reach market weight. There are many advantages to this, including the extra time that gives them the ability to grow more properly and evenly. These birds will typically dress out anywhere between 10 and 28 pounds, depending on the type of turkey and the age of the bird.
If you choose a production breed, late July will give you adequate time to grow to butcher by Thanksgiving. However, if you’re raising heritage breeds, be sure to get them in early summer.
Turkey Breeds to Consider Raising
Production Turkey Breeds
While several hatcheries have their own twist on production breeds, there are really only two main production breed turkeys. The broad-breasted white and the broad-breasted bronze. Both of these breeds result in larger birds than a heritage breed will.
Selectively bred and unable to naturally reproduce, broad-breasted turkeys are created via artificial insemination. Both of these breeds convert feed well and grow out quickly. The advantage to the white versus the bronze is the white will dress out more “cleanly” whereas the bronze has darker pin feathers making them slightly more difficult to dress.
Adult turkeys of these commercial turkeys will produce a large ratio of breast meat, much like a cornish cross chicken, hence the name.
Heritage Turkey Breeds
Heritage breeds have several advantages over production breeds, the most important being they can naturally reproduce. Consider this when you’re raising turkeys if you want to be more self-sufficient and not always dependent on hatchery availability.
Blue Slate Turkey
This breed is listed as threatened by livestock conservancy and has been recognized by the American Poultry Association since 1878.
This breed has a good rate of gain and good feed conversion. Plus, they’re beautiful. Toms grow to a market weight of approximately 23 to 27 pounds, and hens to 14 to 18 pounds.
Narragansett Turkey
A cross between wild turkeys and domestic turkeys, this breed is named after Narragansett bay in Rhode Island. This breed is rare, makes excellent mothers, and is fairly docile.
This medium-sized turkey grows well. Toms grow to a market weight of about 30 pounds and hens 17 pounds.
White Holland Turkey
Often confused with the broad-breasted white, the white holland turkey is a true heritage breed that was carefully bred to showcase the recessive trait of white feathers in turkeys.
This breed dresses out beautifully and is absolutely gorgeous strutting around the farm. Toms will grow out to a market weight of approximately 25 pounds, and hens to 16 pounds.
Butchering Turkeys
A note on butchering turkeys. It’s not difficult to do yourself, much like a very large, overgrown chicken. However, be sure if you aren’t going to be processing your own birds, that you find someone who will butcher for you.
If you are planning to butcher your own, ensure you have a huge scalding pot at the ready and time as small, backyard chicken pluckers are not large enough to accommodate most turkeys.
Turkeys provide a good yield, dressing out to about 75% of their live weight, but do take time and effort to get plucked and wrapped for the freezer, unless you’re eating the bird fresh. Large poultry shrink-wrap bags on the market are perfect for getting the bird ready for the freezer.
If you’re looking for ideas on how to reconnect with your food, nature, and the heritage way of life, you’ve come to the right place.
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