The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Gregoz on November 16, 2016, 09:38:10 am
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Is it time to start using finishing food on Turkeys
Any tips ideas how to finish them?
First time for me and they could really use some weight
Cheers
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Make sure they always have plenty of very clean water - at that age they drink a lot and won't eat well if they're dehydrated.
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bit late in the day now to gain weight if they were on a good poultry fattener/growner at 20% plus roaming and given apples, veg etc then they should be ready to go now close to 20 weeks. The finisher is usually corn/cracked wheat from mill or farm feeds I think given a few weeks before just to get good golden fat covering. Its been a few years since I raised them and cant remember the full details. Assuming you are killing at around 18th December you have 4 weeks left. If you can weigh one now and halve the weight this gives approx oven weight.
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I fed mine mixed corn dampened with cooking oil (unused!) as well as finishers. Feed ad lib and they'll soon put on weight.
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Remember, if they are traditional rather than double breasted they won't get massive whatever you do.
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We switch to finisher with 7-8 weeks to go, so I'd say yes given we've only 4 week left!