raising Turkeys (for meat)

[pegasus bridge]

this has sort of been touched on in another thread, but rather than derail that I thought i would start a new one:

 

A couple of members mentioned raising turkeys, its something i fancy doing. I have had chickens for years, so im not a complete novice with poultry, but have never had turkeys;

 

 

I would look to cull them in time for christmas, prob no more than 5 or 6

 

 

I have a few questions though:

 

1) how much space to they need? ive got at least 8mtr x 16mtrs enclosed on grass to play with-is this enough? does it need to be covered on top? (can they fly out)

 

2) do they need a coop similar to chickens (ie off floor roosting etc)

 

3) are they easy enough to manage?

 

4) would they be ok with chickens?

 

5) is the butchering fairly straight forward? (ive done chickens before)

 

6) How old should i but them at?

 

7)any idea of feed costs?

 

 

 

thanks for looking folks

 

please let me know if I have not covered anything!

 

[Lord Geordie]

Gutting is exactly the same as with Chicken, only on a larger scale!

 

I used to work on a Farm that supplied Turkeys to the shops at Christmas. One shop sent in cases of red wine for the birds to drink. Apparently they claimed it came through into the meat and improved the flavour?

 

We had a chap collected the blood for his leeks too

 

I would say that 6 in the space mentioned should be fine. You will be best making the sides and top of the coop with chicken wire. Try and sink the wire below ground too to stop predators getting in and the birds digging out.

 

Make their hut just like a chickens with around a foot space between the floor.of the hut and the ground.

 

You ideally want a turkey between 20 - 30 weeks of age for slaughter. If it.gets long in the tooth so to speak you can still slow cook it in a stew etc though.

[Lord Geordie]

Oh and keeping Turkeys with Chooks isn't recommended. There is a disease called black head among other names that you really want to avoid

 

It's caused by chicken poop. It will wipe out flocks of turkeys with little to NO warning. It's best to put your turkey's down on land that has NOT been used in the past by Chooks due to the poop contamination risk.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Lord Geordie

[pegasus bridge]

Oh and keeping Turkeys with Chooks isn't recommended. There is a disease called black head among other names that you really want to avoid

 

It's caused by chicken poop. It will wipe out flocks of turkeys with little to NO warning. It's best to put your turkey's down on land that has NOT been used in the past by Chooks due to the poop contamination risk.

thanks for the reply

the grass area hasnt been used for chickens in the sense of them being permanently on it - but they have had occasional access to the area (still grass with no poop on) would this be ok?

[Lord Geordie]

I am not too sure! It should be OK as long as there has been a good long spell without chooks on it. Just try and keep the pen in good fettle and keep it clean. The Turkeys will need straw or wood shavings in the coop it's self and quite often sleep on the floor rather than on Perches.

 

Keep their water supply clean and keep the floor of the coop clean also. They are VERY messy birds as you will discover.

 

Little tip when butchering. Take a sharp knife and cut round the knee of the bird. Bend the leg backward till the knee dislocates and pull the foot from the leg. Will take a bit of effort but pulls the sinew out of the leg and makes better eating.

[swiss.tony]

Iv got a farmer that last year spent 15 k on a massive fence round a wood put 400 turkeys down only young"ens never spent a quid on feeding them paid a bloke to look after them water picking odd dead ones up and basic stuff like that think he got 330 off at xmas smallest one was 22lbs he made a fortune on them but he said it was scary thinking theres 30 grand sat up there in woods .

 

this year he"s got 1000 down and a new wood as well getting fenced for next year he recons he will jack sheep in and mover over more to turkeys full time depending how this year go s

[Ralphster]

We seperated our Turks from the Chucks with a 2m fence clearance and had no problems. They were easy to look after ate like they were starving and actually was really friendly. One of our lot used to come for a stroke when entering the pen.

[rallyrus]

Last year I hatched a dozen turkeys in the incubator to fatten up, mine where then put into the own run which had 6ft6 fencing around the perimeter, they had no problem flying over this as I found out so where mostly free range wandering where they liked, they where with the chickens most if the time, never had any probs with disease.

Considering the size of them its suprising how high they can fly, they would often roost high in the trees and of a day time you'd spot them roosting on the gable of the house!! Who said turkeys can't fly!