Everything you ever wanted to know about raising turkeys
Raising turkeys is a fun way to teach your children responsibility or have a plump bird ready when Thanksgiving rolls around. When you’re ready to begin raising turkeys, keep in mind that you will need an indoor space. You can start by ordering baby turkeys from a hatchery. Make sure that you choose one that is nearby because you want the birds to still be in good condition when they get to your home.
Start by building a small enclosure for the turkeys. A good size is 100 square feet. This is enough space to raise about 10 baby turkeys. Use straw and wood shavings as material for the floor of the pen. Then cover that with cloth, paper, or burlap. This will prevent the baby turkeys from eating the floor material because they will learn where the actual food is located.
Another important thing to consider when you’re raising turkeys is heat. You must have a reliable heat source to keep the turkeys warm. Try hanging a 250-watt heat lamp from the ceiling of the pen you built. This should provide plenty of warmth for your baby turkeys. You want to keep the temperature inside the pen close to 100 degrees. You should keep a thermometer in the pen and monitor the temperature inside frequently.
Before your baby turkeys arrive, you should purchase a bag of turkey starter food. One hundred pounds will feed your 10 baby turkeys for quite some time. Make sure that the food you purchase contains Coccidiosis medication. Coccidiosis is a common intestinal disease found in turkeys. Feeding your baby turkeys this medication while they are young works like a vaccine to help them build an immunity to the disease. As the turkeys age, you’ll switch to grower and then finisher feeds. You’ll want to switch to the growth formula when the turkeys are about 10 weeks old. You will need to sprinkle some grit over your turkeys’ mash about twice a week to help the baby turkeys be able to digest their food. When you switch to the growth formula, then you can increase the grit size to a broiler size. It should still be given twice a week. At 10 weeks of age, you’ll also need to start adding greens to your turkey’s diets.
Don’t forget to have a watering device inside the pen. It should be able to hold the water close to body temperature so the turkeys don’t get too cold. Don’t use an open pan for the water because the turkeys can fall in and die. A one-gallon chick waterer is usually perfect for raising turkeys.
If you start to have a problem with your turkeys hurting each other, then you might want to consider clipping their beaks. Just cut off half of their upper beaks when they are 10 days old. A dog toenail clipper works perfectly for this. Make sure you do it on a cool day if at all possible.