New arrivals - turkey poults

We're starting to hatch serious quantities of turkeys. This batch is a variety of breeds; eastern wild, narragansett, blue slate, black spanish and bourbon red. when I hatch the eggs it's always a little nerve racking; other than candling them to see if they're developing, you never know how many you'll get. Some of the poults die right at the end. Thankfully we're getting good hatch rates this year .

Steps to take to make your hatch better:

Collect your eggs a couple of times a day and store them in a temperature-stable environment, like your house. 60 degrees works for me. Don't wash or mess with them at all. Put them in an egg carton or rack and let them be.

Let them warm up to room temperature slowly (70-80 degrees) before you put them in the incubator. I like at least 4 hours to bring them up that 20 degrees.

Make sure your incubator is set correctly for what you're hatching; both temperature and humidity need to be checked.

First turkey / Turkey brooding

This poult is about 3 minutes out of the egg, all wet and wobbly, peeping a little.

I've found that turkey poults are more challenging to raise than chickens. So here's the regimen I use to minimize turkey poult loss:

1) I hatch my own. Shipping losses from hatcheries last year were 30% out of the box, and that sucks when they cost $9-12/each. No shipping means no shipping stress, better survival.

2) They stay in the brooder until they're warm and dry, usually 12 hours after they hatch. Starting warm and dry is pretty important.

3) The lights in the brooding bin are set close enough to make the wood chip surface 103 degrees. The turkey poults will move into this "hot" area and out of it and regulate their own temperature. So there's a 1 square foot area of "hot" and the rest of the area is various levels of heat less than that.

4) For the first two days I put a layer of newspaper over the chips. Turkeys will eat the chips, fill their stomach with it, and die. The newspaper prevents them from eating the chips. Yes, you do run a risk of spraddle, but I've never lost a turkey to spraddle and i've lost quite a few to wood chips. You remove the paper after the first two days or if it gets wet or slick.

5) I have chickens, and I supplement a high-protein chick starter with crumbled hard boiled chicken eggs. In my opinion, turkeys cannot have too much protein.

6) In the feed, and the water, I put a handful of clear glass marbles. The type people put in vases to hold flowers up. The turkeys are irresistibly attracted to shiny and they peck at the shiny marbles, and their beak slides off and into the food and water. They get the the idea faster this way.

7) as I put each turkey into the brooder I dip its beak into the water.

8) after all of the turkeys are in the bin, I tap on the food. They run over to see what the tapping is, and they try to peck my finger, and then the food. This seems to help them get it.

9) I put two or three chicken chicks in with each group of 20 turkeys. The chickens understand the food and water situation, and the turkeys watch them, and figure it out based on that. Yes, you run the risk of losing turkeys to blackhead disease but my experience has been ok so far.

If I do all of these things, I'll only lose 2-3% of the turkeys in the first 4 weeks. If I skip any of these steps I'll lose a progressively larger percentage. If I treat these little turkeys identically to chicken chicks, I'll typically lose 30-40%.

Heritage Turkey behavior

The breeding flock of turkeys that I keep are allowed to free range this time of year. They forage for stuff they like to eat, and seem to have better survival rates this way. At this age they're pretty tough birds; I do lose the occasional turkey to a coyote, but not often. One of the main reasons that I don't is that the turkeys like to roost high.

Turkeys would rather walk

The turkeys in this picture are climbing a ladder up to the roof of a farm building (that I'm STILL waiting for Snohomish county to approve the permit for; 90 days and counting...). They'd much rather hop and flap up the ladder than just fly up -- which they can do pretty well. Given a choice, they'd rather run or walk than fly. When they do fly, they only do a few hundred feet at most It's almost like there's a no-fly zone over my farm. They do fly from time to time, but usually with a running start. They'll start running in a direction, take about 20 steps, flap and glide 200 feet, and then land running. Total elevation during this is maybe 3 feet. But when pressed they can and do fly. They fly up to their preferred roost on the posts of the half-finished barns.

Turkey behavior

The turkeys are pretty firmly segregated into two flocks at this time of year. One flock is male, the other female. Both flocks are sorting out the pecking order -- male turkeys are jockeying for position in their flock, and so are females. The male goal is to be able to command a good piece of real-estate on demand, hopefully in view of the hens. The hens goal is to be able to eat first. Some of the turkeys are showing signs of wear-and-tear in their feathers. Usually those turkeys made their bid for supremacy a little early and will usually not end up the dominant bird even if they are now. The ones that are hanging back a little will be fresh and rested when their time comes. So it'll be one of those turkeys that makes the final jump to King or Queen of the flock.

Egg laying and turkey timing

The turkeys are producing a small quantity of eggs now, but I'm not hatching them. It's too tough to keep turkey poults alive right now outside. Plus you don't really want to feed too many full-sized turkeys at the end of the year. The goal is to have most of the thanksgiving turkeys hatch in March/April, and most of the Christmas turkeys hatch in May/June. The replacements for the breeding flock can hatch in July/August, and the cycle will begin again.

A turkey hen averages an egg every other day for 4 months.