Author Topic: Planning for Christmas dinner (Read 4298 times)

shrekfeet · « **on:** May 15, 2009, 10:24:28 am »

I fancy keeping a small number of turkey for Christmas, any advice? When should I get them, what shouyld I feed them, what breeds, who can I get them from and at what age, All advice much appreciated.

Thanks
Ian

catomell · « **Reply #1 on:** May 15, 2009, 10:30:11 am »

Hi, I always get my turkey poults in at the beginning of July - Kelly Bronze are the type that I rear. Happily, there are a number of us in the area who get them, and one man picks them all up and distributes them!! I buy them in as day olds, and raise them as one would day old chicks, although they grow a lot faster, and are far more boisterous and curious than chicks. DO NOT feed them chick crumb, as it does not agree with them. You need to check with your feed merchant if they do Turkey starter crumb, grower pellets and Turkey Finisher Pellets. Normally, I keep them on crumb till such time as they are capable of pellets - normally as quick as possible, as pellets are cheaper. Then I keep them on grower pellets till the second week in November, then transfer them to finisher pellets. This seems to result in a tasty, large bird. One year, I did give them some left over pheasant rearer pellets that a friend had left over from his shoot, then had to put them on a diet, as they got very large, very quickly!! Haven't made that mistake again.....Catherine.

shrekfeet · « **Reply #2 on:** May 15, 2009, 12:27:11 pm »

Thanks Catherine, how much space would you allow per bird and do you let them out to scratch around? Do you slaughter them yourselves? I used to look after turkeys on a farm I worked on many years ago. Any problems I need to look out for? What weight do they get to and how do you manage the finshed weight as obviously the slaughter date is kind of fixed!

dixie · « **Reply #3 on:** May 15, 2009, 12:29:25 pm »

My advice would be to not keep them anywhere near chickens nor where chickens have been previously, google 'blackhead in turkeys' to find out more. Also I fed turkey poults with chick crumb but with chopped boiled egg added for extra protein, they loved it!! then we used turkey growers pellets but didn't bother with finisher pellets. They also had corn in the aftenoons and had a pen 30' square to play in. we put straw bales in for them to roost on and a low perch in their house, they were attacked one night, by we think, a rat. so we let them stay out all night and roost on the bales or an internal fence we put up for them! they are hilarious creatures, very addictive, but do get familiar with blackhead its a horrible fatal illness!

shetlandpaul · « **Reply #4 on:** May 15, 2009, 01:36:20 pm »

if you worm all your animals blackhead should not be a problem. Please let them run free if possible they really enjoy it. you may end up walking them home on the odd occasion but very much worth it. We ended up having to feed them on chicken growers pellets as the merchant could not get turkey feed in. they slaughtered out as clean turkeys at 7kg for the males and 5 kg for the hens. they are very greedy and will mug your chucks for there food.

dixie · « **Reply #5 on:** May 15, 2009, 04:10:42 pm »

yes you can worm to try to prevent blackhead, use flubenvet from 3 weeks old for 7 days every 2 weeks! until they are 18 weeks old. Thats what I was told on the turkey club forum. We lost 5 turkeys to blackhead after hatching them ourselves, it was horrible, we managed to save one and bought her a friend! but it was heartbreaking stuff

the chickens are routinely wormed every 6 months but blackhead lives in the ground, we'd not had chickens on there for 4 months but they still got it.

shetlandpaul · « **Reply #6 on:** May 15, 2009, 04:54:33 pm »

can you guess how we got blackhead in this country.

is there not a drug that helps against blackhead.

dixie · « **Reply #7 on:** May 15, 2009, 06:10:53 pm »

yes there used to be treatment for it but was banned 10 years ago in the EU ruling

Currently there is no prescribed medicine for turkeys. However, you can use metronidazole 200mg tablets, luckily my vet gave it to me (prescribed only for dogs, oh and for humans for tooth abcess's and for std's

)!!
it is not meant for turkeys but it works! 1 tablet daily for 5 days, turkeys are actually very good at taking tablets and I will be happy to help anyone who has turkeys with this horrible illness, I am wary of doing turkeys again this year, but if I do I will lime the ground before and worm as described above, amazing I knew nothing of this illness a year ago, feel like a bloomin expert now

catomell · « **Reply #8 on:** May 15, 2009, 07:56:28 pm »

I personally have no experience of blackhead in turkeys, or chickens for that matter, but until we moved here 5 years ago, there had never been a chicken on the place!
The only problem I have had with my turkeys is firstly mycoplasma, transmitted by the large number of reared pheasants locally for shooting. Secondly, they do not like loud noises, and I often lose a couple a year when the RAF fly over in their fighters and helicopters. In terms of space per bird, I have never really measured it. I generally rear a couple of dozen a year, and they run alongside my chickens in a very large area between the breed pens that I have for my different breed chickens. I would guess that the area is approximately 15ft by 120ft. They do seem to enjoy scratching around, but I generally have to put them to bed every single night. Happily, I have managed to train my collies to do the job for me! Oddly, this does not appear to stress the birds at all, yet me picking them up and putting them to bed really annoys them!
Incidentally, I still maintain that Turkeys are the Sheep of the bird world - they are not particularly intelligent, and seem to think that there destiny in life is to die - normally about two weeks earlier and weighing less than you would like.
Weight wise - the hen birds come in lighter than the stags, but then again, it really depends on your customers at the end of the day. I don't generally get requests for more than 22lb, but I get a lot of requests for 10-12lb birds! Bear this in mind when choosing whether to go for white turkeys or bronzes, as the bronzes tend not to be as heavy. And yes, we slaughter on farm, as happily a good friend is a licensed slaughterman. My husband and I do all the plucking, dressing, final preparation etc....
Catherine.

shetlandpaul · « **Reply #9 on:** May 15, 2009, 08:50:53 pm »

we had a friend kill ours as we had never done turkeys. They do like to get themselves killed. one of ours jumped in our neighbours dog pen.

cluckyclaire · « **Reply #10 on:** May 16, 2009, 05:08:01 pm »

And there was me thinking that my geese were the sheep of the bird world - they seem to like to try a kill themselves (normally sticking their heads through any wire possible including the electric fence!)