# tips on raising turkey poults?



## karenbrat1 (Jun 25, 2009)

I've tried raising a few (like 5 or 6 at a time) turkeys 3x, but the darn things seem to be born lookin' for a place to die and 3-4 would die within the first week. Each time, they were raised with a bunch of chicken chicks and under a heat lamp, with room to get as close to or as far away from the heat as they liked. I fed a turkey starter to the whole group so the turkeys were getting the protein they needed. There was plenty of feeder and waterer space, wood shavings bedding, and their pen was protected from drafts. My chick brooder is a 4' x 4' x 2' high cage with the bottom foot lined with plywood for drafts, and inside that is a 2' square "Ohio" brooder box with the light inside, as shown on www.plamondon.com. I had excellent survival rates on the chicken chicks, only lost 4 I think it was out of 105 total (in several batches). Are there any other special requirements turkey poults have that I am unaware of?


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## FL.Boy (Dec 17, 2007)

I'll be watching for the replies because the 2 years i have raised them i lose 50%


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## roolover (Jul 16, 2007)

Turkey poults are very fragile for the first 2-3 weeks. I raised 20 last year, and only lost one (at 5 days). I started mine in a guinea pig cage for the first 2 weeks, then moved them to the brooder on the back porch. They are very slow to learn to eat and drink, and I found I had to "encourage" them (i.e., keep reminding them where the water was). I put brightly colored marbles in the water and in the feeder, which they pecked at and "accidently" consumed nutrients. After a while, they figured out how to eat. Also, poults chill very easily, so you really need to monitor the temperatures.


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## egg head (Nov 11, 2009)

We raised 15 broad breasted this last year still have four.
1. We get them from the local feed store after they have stayed there for about 4 days. 
2. We pick them out of the group.
3. We keep them buy themselves.
4. We do what you do as in feed, ground cover, and drafts. but our turkey brooder is 4'X4' and we move them to a bigger brooder when they are two weeks old that is 4'X8'. At four weeks they go down to the barn We leave them inside for another week. (all this time they have heat on them.
5. We really spoil them with housing. We will have 25 this spring and can't wait.
6. It may sound dumb but we talk to them a lot. We look at the chickens maybe an hour a week we talk to the turkeys maybe eight to ten hours a week and the first days they are home they get all the attention. We just love on them a lot, In there main coop that is 15'X 60' and twenty feet tall we built nest, roost, and have all the cozy things they would want. They can even fly around it is kind of fun to watch the big boys fly a little.
Almost forgot we do mix in clover grass with the feed early on, it is a high protein feed. They just do great on it and it cuts the feed bill down about 70%. Hope the best to you in trying again.


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## Jennifer L. (May 10, 2002)

As already said, turkey poults are more delicate than chicks the first four weeks. And they don't travel by mail very well. So while if you get a bad shipment of chicks, the ones that don't die normally will do decently for you once you get them warmed up and fed. With turkey poults it's different. They may look fine and just keep dying one by one over a period of two weeks or more. Just the nature of the bird. So it's kind of a crap shoot to order turkeys by mail sometimes. To me, it's well worth it to pay for Express Mail for turkey poults if you are talking quite expensive heritage type turks.

It's just little more of a gamble on getting them through the mail than chicks, and you have to go into it knowing that. Poults from your own birds are bullet proof raised in the house. So once you get breeding stock you are good to go.

Good luck! Turkeys are just wonderful. 


Jennifer


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## kenman (Jan 7, 2010)

As others have pointed out, turkey poults are tough to raise. Last February, I purchased 6 BB whites. My wife thought I was nuts and that it was too cold. I raised and processed all six (delicious!) with no problems. In the summer, I purchased and picked up four Bourbon Reds from a local hatchery, paid a lot more for them than the whites. Two died after three weeks. The other two waited until week six. In late summer I came across a lady who had a bunch of three month old Bourbon's for $5 each. I bought eight (all the money I had at the time). Brought them home, they were healthy and doing great. After a month, one just lay down and died. Another got her head stuck in the fence (2X4 welded wire?) and died. Then in the fall two were killed by an owl. Still have four, two toms and two hens. I guess my point is, you can do the best you can and everything right and still it's a crap shoot!


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Don't. That's my only advice, don't. 

(from someone who has been dealing with stupid, escaping, murdering, boney turkeys since July) Did I mention stupid?


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

I love turkeys...much more than the chickens. The one thing I have noticed is that the turkeys need more...love. I have never had the BB ones, just heritage. I have hatched and bought poults.
Whereas chickens just want to be left alone, turkeys want to bond with you. Need to bond with something bigger, at least. I just make sure I hang my hand into the brooder so that they can curl up under my hands. I take them out and place on top of the freezer and lay over them. After that contact, they eat like pigs. I ahve been known to watch tv with turkeys all tucked up too. 
I think that may be the key to having turkeys that thrive... attention adn the bonding process. Sure makes dealing with them as they get big much easier. Mine came running when I called.."Hi turkey' in the same three notes they peep with as poults.


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## karenbrat1 (Jun 25, 2009)

Thank you for the advice! Re them learning to eat and drink, that's why I raised them with chicken chicks, I figured they would learn from them. All the poults we bought at local feed stores, after they had been in the stores 3-4 days, in fact one of the stores where I had pre-ordered them insisted that we NOT pick them up until they had had them for several days. We bought a mixture of the BBs and heritage and lost about the same percentage of each. I have definitely noticed that when they got older, the turkeys became fascinated with people and would follow me wherever I went. Just for the hilariousness of it all I would jog around the yard, with a line of turkeys jogging after me :-D They were just as shy as the chicks when they were young, probably because they bonded with them. I HATED to butcher them... they look at you with those big dark eyes and just can't understand why you're being so mean! But boy do they taste good :-D I still have a Narragansett tom and Bourbon hen, if she produces eggs I will try to hatch some, and raise them in a more personal manner and see if it helps!


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## karenbrat1 (Jun 25, 2009)

Oh, and with all my batches of chicks and poults, after the first couple days I was putting in the hay "dust", seeds and tiny bits that shook out into the wheelbarrow after feeding the horses. They loved that stuff and would all jump in, scratch away and snarf it up. And after a week or so I was putting in pulled-up clover and grass with the dirt still on the roots. I was sprinkling a pinch of sand on their feeders every time I filled them, to make sure they had grit. When they were fully feathered out, they went out into hoop chicken tractors on grass. The turks I have left are living in the winter coop with my laying hens. I am in northern Idaho and it's flippin' cold here in the winter, it gets down to -20 at times (not too often thank goodness). The winter coop arrangement (two hoop coops attached to a small shed) is unheated and uninsulated, and all the birds including the turks perch on the branches I installed in the hoops, rather than those in the shed where I would think they would be more protected from the elements. I have gotten a bit of frozen comb on the chickens now and then but they come out of it, and I've only ever had three adult birds die, which were injured (bum legs) to begin with and therefore weaker.

My chick pen was large enough for the amount of birds I had, after they began feathering out the chicks would spread out all over and some would fly up and perch on the top of the brooder box. They never seemed crowded.


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## Pat (Jul 24, 2004)

I had just about given up on turkey poults (had about a 20% live rate)... when I opened a catalog from Ideal http://www.ideal-poultry.com/ and they suggested raising 4 or 5 chicks with the poults... (I'm in Turkey Factory country, and to have chickens is forbiden... to the point that I can't even visit someone who has a turkey factory because of the "stuff" on my boots).

I tried it, and went from 20% live rate to 20% die rate. (but only a couiple of chicks!) When I've tried adding 5 or 8 poults to 25 chicks I'm back to the 20% live rate. 

Usually what I do is buy the poults, and the day they arrive go to the feed store or somewhere that is selling chicks, and buy 4 or 5.

If that is impossible, and if you have 2 brood chambers, I'd order chicks for the same delivery as the poults, and move 4 or 5 of the chicks into the poult chamber.... don't know why having mostly chicks gives the bad rate, but it sure does for me.

Pat


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