# Winter housing and needs of turkeys.



## K Epp (Jan 7, 2013)

This is my first winter having Turkey's. Is there any thing special they need? What kind of housing do they require. How much should I expect to feed them a day? I have two standard bronze. Still not certain on their gender. At 7 months their snoods aren't really growing much. They have tiny spur buds, no beard, some small feathers up the back of neck and head. Breast feathers have small white lacing. I will try to get a updated pic tomorrow.


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## Copperhead (Sep 12, 2011)

now where's that pic???

Turkeys require less than you think, during the winter. Shoot, just noticed you're in Georgia -- you don't even have winter!!!

Up here in the WV mountains where we get 3 feet of heavy, wet snow that lasts from January to mid-March with an average daily temperature of 20F, we do keep the turkeys in a large, airy shed. They are protected from the "rain", sleet, and snow, but this particular barn offers little to no protection from the wind. They get fed daily, unless we get lazy and put a weeks worth of food in their barn. We do put a bird-bath heater in their water dish to keep it wet and liquid. In past years, we did NOT have the water heater, but the turkeys did a fair (not great, but fair) job of keeping an open hole in the ice covering their water -- which is why turkeys and colonized rabbits work well together!

So . . . food and wet water and some kind of shelter! The main importance of the shelter is to give them an area to walk around (so they can eat and drink). If they know the snow is deep (over a foot), they quit flying down from the roost and can starve/thirst to death. After a really bad winter, we find lots of wild turkeys where they fell out of the tree when they died


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

my turkeys back in Kansas were free range, they would go into the garage in really cold snowy weather during the day with the other poultry but would be out strutting on the packed snow in no time, they slept ontop of the peak of our two story farm house much to the chagrin of my family, if we stopped them from going up there then they were either in the trees with the peacocks or on the mettle dog run, they are remarkably cold resistant especially if they had a full belly of corn or something before bed, 

but yes your in GA and don't really have cold snowy weather so I wouldn't worry about it, just keep doing what your doing and they will be fine,


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## sriston (Mar 30, 2013)

Like others, our Standard Bronze turkeys have a barn to go into. The hens and young ones do, but our tom turkey (who is mean as sin to everyone but me) never goes into the barn. He roosts on the roof of the barn at the peak, and gobbles when the sun starts rising. He has been rained on, sleeted on, covered with snow, etc. Hasn't bothered him one bit. I figure if he doesn't have enough sense to come in out of the weather after all these years, oh well..


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## K Epp (Jan 7, 2013)

Thanks. We have come to the determination that I have Hens. :clap: from another post I made. They are living inside a cinder block barn with a dirt floor. It has a hardware cloth door and window, but I do have covers for both so I can adjust the ventilation. I had chickens and baby goats last winter and they did fine so I assume the turkeys will be great. I fasten everyone up at night and let them out in the morning. they have a creek that runs near so I'm lucky enough not to have to worry about the water freezing. I'm on the GA/TN/NC line in the mountains so we do have winter. Just not as bad as bad or with as much snow, but definitely wet and freezing with several snows on the ground for a week or so at a time around 4-8 inches usually. All the old timers say its going to be a bad one this year. :runforhills: Something to do with the acorns and squirrels. 

....now to see if I'm brave enough to add a tom. I already have someone trying to sell me a pair. I know we have wild turkeys around and don't want mine running off. Knock on wood they haven't tried to go over out 4 ft chain link fence hand have been happy in the 2 acres they have.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

if you have wild turkeys in the area come spring your hens will want to mate, you might get lucky and have a wild tom stop by and breed them on your property, or they may go off looking for a tom, it would be best to get your own domestic tom before that happens just in case, a domestic tom will keep the wild toms away from his territory,


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## K Epp (Jan 7, 2013)

It doesn't have to ne a bronze though does it? What is my dead line to have my Tom settled in?


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

any color will do, just depends what you want the babies to look like, honestly the sooner the better but as long as he is there by mid to late winter to be safe it should be fine, some hens start cycling early when well fed and in a more temperate region. if you have a tom available now I would go ahead and get him,


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

well I take that back, just don't get one of the Broad Brested kinds, they wont be able to breed, any of the heritage breeds will work great,


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