Turkeys are fairly easy to raise because that can thrive in free range conditions with minimal labor and attention. As a farmer, all you have to provide is a safe environment with clean pasture, clean drinking water, some shelter and occasional veterinary care in order to ensure that the birds are healthy.
You may also have to fence your turkey farm in order to protect them from predators. Here are some tips to keep in mind when planning to raise turkeys in your farm or backyard:-
- Turkeys love to free range in the open. Allow them to roam about in the pasture and then gather them back into the barn at night.
- Turkeys mostly eat plants so a lot of effort should be put into pasture management for your turkey. Fence a forage area and divide it into paddocks where the turkey can enjoy great access to the pasture.
- Apart from grass and plant leaves, you can also feed your turkey some fruit peels, sorghum, corn, shrimps, fish as well as grated coconut.
- If you are keeping your turkeys in coops, keep in mind that they are going to eat more food than those that are foraging. Apart from that, try to get the turkeys out to access the pasture as often as possible otherwise they will wear out the flowing of the turkey coop with their sheer weight. Turkeys will thrive in an environment where they are free to forage.
- If you will be keeping in the coops and feeding them on some form of formulated feeds, it is important to keep in mind the cost of feeding the turkeys. Turkeys are heavy feeders and about 500 turkeys can easily consume 15 sacks of poultry feed in a week. However, when you allow the turkeys to roam about, you can greatly reduce the cost of feeding hence raise the turkeys cheaply.
- It is advisable to build the turkey shelter in the middle of pasture area where they can easily access food as soon as they get out.
- The turkey coop must provide sufficient space for sleeping and nesting. A turkey shelter must be at least 3m high and the floor should be able to absorb manure. The total floor surface area will depend on the number of turkeys that you are planning to keep. Make sure you maintain a reasonable stocking density for your turkeys. In the turkey coops, you can put the food and the fresh water in separate corners inside the coop.
- Make sure the chicken run is fenced with at least five feet wire to keep the turkey inside the forage area. This is the place where they will eat, mate, forage and express various other natural behaviors.
- In good weather, allow the turkeys to roam in the forage so that they can pick the insects and eat the grass in the pasture. Transfer the turkeys from one place to another in the field so that they don’t overeat grass in one location and destroy the forage. The best way to manage the pasture is by dividing it into paddocks, each separated by chicken wire.
- You can feed the turkeys twice a day with your commercial feeds. Feed them in the morning when they get out to forage and in the evening when they come back into the barn.
- The turkey feed should contain at least 24% protein since they have a high protein demand. However, this is not attainable in most commercial feeds where the protein content generally ranges from 16% to 22%. The diet should also include at least 2% calcium and 0.9% phosphorous. Turkeys will grow very fast on this diet. Within 18 weeks, a male turkey can weigh as much as 10 kilos while a female turkey will weigh 7 kilos.
- Make sure the turkeys always have access to food and clean drinking water. Occasionally, you can add some antibiotic in the food, water or by injection as directed by a vet.
- Turkey chicks will have to be spoon fed until they can eat as they cannot see up to the age of one week after they have been hatched. They can even be given milk though various formulations are generally used.
- Supply a single male for every 12 to 15 of small turkey breeds. For the larger turkey breeds, you can supply a single male for every 8 to 10 turkeys. The fertilized eggs should then be gathered and hatched in an incubator.
- The eggs hatch in 28 days.
- The turkeys will molt or shed at least once in a year. Once they have shed, they will lay more eggs. The molting is generally accelerated when the food is scarce. Some growers will hasten the molting ahead of slaughter for Christmas.
- The most serious disease affecting turkeys is the blackening of the head which is caused by contaminated feeds and water. Other diseases that affect turkeys are chicken pox and neck paralysis which makes them unable to swallow.