Although I had been a vegetarian for 14 years and had never liked turkey when I was a meat eater, I wanted to raise turkeys when we moved to the country in 2002. I had discovered that most breeds of turkeys were in danger of extinction back in the late 1990s, and I wanted to be part of the solution.
How could most breeds of turkeys have been in danger of extinction? Because almost all of the turkeys raised commercially in this country are a broad-breasted strain that was developed more than half a century ago. They have white feathers (so they’ll have cleaner carcasses) and huge breasts (because Americans prefer breast meat). That means that the heritage breeds of turkeys, which have been around for centuries were being almost completely ignored.
I met my first heritage turkeys at the Garfield Farm Rare Breed Show in 1997 when I was a reporter. I was totally enamored with the blue slate and bourbon red turkeys and saddened that there were only a few hundred left at that time.
So, when we finally moved to our homestead in 2002, I bought ten poults of each breed. The books made turkey raising sound really hard. They said that turkeys would die if I didn’t put medication in their water, and they said that turkeys would die if they came in contact with chickens.
I recalled that my grandparents had always had both turkeys and chickens running around on their farm, so I figured that if they could do it, so could I. I also decided to skip the medication for the water.
In my mind, if the birds couldn’t survive without daily drugs, then maybe they didn’t deserve saving. Plus, I knew that prior to the 20th century, all animals survived organically, so I didn’t really think I was doing anything that radical.
Here we are 15 years later, and we’ve had great success raising turkeys and chickens together — without drugs. In fact, a couple of years ago, I wrote this blog post about raising them together, which explains why we’d been successful in mixing the two species.
Table of Contents
Brooding turkeys
Over the years, I’ve found that brooding turkeys isn’t any more complicated than brooding chickens. Although a lot of people have written about poults having trouble learning to eat, we’ve never had any problems.
When we receive them from the hatchery, we put them in a box or old water trough with white paper towels on the bottom. Why white paper towels? Because we sprinkle starter feed on the paper towels, which makes it very easy for them to see. It’s a natural instinct for them to peck at anything that looks like a bug, so they immediately start pecking at the crumbles and eating.
If they came from a hatchery, we dip their beaks in water so they understand that concept, plus to combat dehydration from their trip. However, if they’re hatched in an incubator on our farm, we just put them in the brooder, and they figure it all out on their own. In fact, we have almost zero mortality for poults hatched on our farm. That leads me to conclude that shipping stress is the reason we lose a few that we buy from hatcheries.
If mama turkey hens hatch babies, they do a great job of teaching them to do everything, so survival is also almost 100 percent. We put mama and babies in a chicken tractor so the poults are safe from predators. It also avoids the risk of them getting lost when mama runs through tall grass. We usually remove the mama when her babies are a couple of months old, although it’s not unusual for her to continue to roost on top of the chicken tractor for days or even weeks.
Raising heritage turkeys
When raising heritage turkeys, we use a chicken tractor because they can fly. They don’t fly away, but it does create problems when we need to catch them for processing. So, after two years of having to explain to customers that their turkeys flew up into a tall oak tree, we’ve started using the moveable pens.
Since turkeys are so much bigger than chickens we can only get 7 to 10 mature turkeys in each of the tractors, depending upon whether it’s one of the 9 X 9 foot or 10 X 10 foot. When they are old enough to be on pasture, we will move 15 to 20 into a chicken tractor, and then as they start to get crowded, we split them into two groups.
Raising broad-breasted turkeys
When raising broad-breasted turkeys, we let them free range. Their breasts are so big that they can’t fly. They can use their wings to help them jump up onto a fence or gate, but I guess they’re smart enough to know where they’re fed because (knock on wood) we’ve never had one jump down on the road side of the fence.
Broad-breasted turkeys are bred to gain weight really fast and to have huge breasts. The first few years we raised them, we wound up with several becoming lame after only a few months. Bascially, they gained more weight than their bone structure could carry, and they wound up unable to walk. Ultimately, we began adjusting the amount of protein in their feed.
Although turkeys start out with a much higher protein feed than chickens (24 to 27%), we found that we could reduce the amount of protein considerably with the broad breasted after 2-3 months. In fact, if we keep broad-breasted turkeys for four months or longer, we switch them to cracked corn at that age, which is very low protein.
Keep in mind that they are on pasture, so they’re consuming bugs for additional protein. My best guess is that the commercial feeds are meant for birds in confinement that have no additional protein sources. Because the genes in these birds cause them to grow so fast, any extra protein (such as bugs on pasture) simply causes them to grow too fast.
Eating turkeys
One of the best things about raising our own turkeys is that we eat them year round. Although we stick with the traditional roasted turkey for Thanksgiving, we fix turkey in a multitude of ways the rest of the year.
Grinding up breast meat and making burgers is one of my personal favorites. I also like cutting leg and thigh meat into strips and making schnitzel, which reminds me of chicken fried steak. Grinding up the dark meat also makes a tasty chili.
Yes, that does mean that we gave up our vegetarian ways and began eating our own meat, and I also discovered that I love the flavor of free-range turkey meat. But because we know so much more now about raising food animals, we feel even more strongly that they should be raised outdoors in fresh air and sunshine, eating bugs and slugs, as nature intended.
Other Turkey Recipe Ideas
Turkey Nuggets
Turkey Stroganoff
Szechwan Turkey and Peanuts
Turkey Bone Broth
I want to raise urkeys and ducks so my question is do they have to have a box or anything to hatch their eggs I bought only 2 turkeys and 3 ducks to start off I just want their housing to be right
Unless you have a male of each species, their eggs will not be fertile, so they won’t hatch. Turkey and duck eggs are delicious for eating!
I am glad you have discovered the tastiness of meat. Especially so of home raised.
I am reading various posts and thoroughly enjoying your blog. Thanks for sharing this info, I want to add a few turkeys to my flock.
I’m glad you’re finding the blog helpful! That’s why I write this stuff.
How do you slaughter and prepare ( pick feathers) from turkeys. I never eat my poultry but since finding out they die young I’m going to try it. Also can you mate white Broad Breasted Turkeys and get poults?
I’d suggest finding a YouTube video on how to do this. It’s way too much to explain here. Broad breasted turkeys cannot mate naturally because they are too big. They can’t get close enough to mate, so they have to be artificially inseminated.
Is there anyway to tell sex of Turkey poults. I raise mine for pets. I need a Tom Palm Royal
This is not easy to do, so most people just wait until they start strutting and gobbling, then they know they have males.
Can I artificially inseminate my Broad Breasted Turkeys. How do I do it?
If you want to raise broad-breasted turkeys, you have to artificially inseminate them. They can’t reproduce naturally because they are too big to be able to reach each other and actually mate. I personally raise heritage breeds because I don’t want to do this, so I have never learned.
Hi! Have you ever mixed your own turkey grower or what do you recommend to buy for feed? Thanks!
We buy commercial feed that is specifically for turkeys or game birds. They need very high protein — like 24-27% — and that’s pretty much impossible to do without a pretty high percentage of soy or fish meal. Turkeys need much higher protein than chickens.
I’d love to see some instructions on how to build the chicken tractor you show here.
I really thought I had written a blog post on this. I know I took all of the photos several years ago when we built the third one. But I just spent 15 minutes searching, and I can’t find it. I definitely need to write it up! Thanks for the suggestion! Now I just have to find all of those photos.
Can heritage turkeys in a tractor loosen up soil in a hacked down blackberry patch so as to make invasive roots easier to remove?
I’m not sure how you’d get a tractor over the blackberry bushes. If you did, you’d have to leave the turkeys there quite a long time so that they’d kill everything. A better option would be pigs because they turn over the earth. They dig down several inches.
Just got my baby turkeys from ideal poultry. No chickens in box, not sure why as ordered 6 also. One already dead. Rest in larger microwave cardboard box with newspaper. Bought to 30 dollar chicken starter box from Tractor Supply that contains a red heat lamp and bulb, chick water, hanging chicken feeder, and sitting chicken feedeer. Have been raising chicken in it and was going to use different box, but none found as good as that new microwave box.
Anyway, getting them from the post office by mail is always fun. Shared my joy of box of chicks with staff and customers. Little town. Anyway the customer takes care of elderly and one had just passed away, she thanked me and said looking at the baby chicks helped her to deal with one of her end of life patients dying an hour ago. Funny how little chicks can help.
Thank you for the paper towel idea. Have added it to the box, They cheep in the background. Will now look for chicken tractor building. Decided that was better than stationary. It sure helps to have these forums.
Congratulations on your new babies. If chicks were missing, I’d suggest calling the hatchery.
I have paired a Blue Slate Tom and 2 Blue Slate Hen sisters as a trio. Tom, Peaches & Cream are now mating and the hens are laying eggs. They are just dropping the eggs on the coup floor and not in the low ground level nest box. Should their nest boxes be a foot or so off the ground? or What type of nest or nest box is the best to build inside their coup so they can sit on and hatch out their own poults and the poults stay safe from Tom after hatching.
Our turkeys have always been free range and have chosen their own nesting place, which has varied from a corner of the barn (most common) to a ditch or under a canoe or a log in the woods. We’ve had them create nests on the ground, as well as on top of the store room in the barn multiple times, so I don’t think location matters. Some are simply not broody, and if they are not broody, they are not going to think about where they are laying their eggs. Maybe about 1 in 4 of our turkey hens will set a nest. It’s better than chickens, but still not great. If you really want poults, you don’t want the eggs to sit around for more than about two weeks before putting them in an incubator. We put mama turkeys and poults into a chicken tractor so they are safe from predators. If you have the trio in a pen together, I’d simply remove the tom and put him in another pen.