Monthly Archives: June 2014

When your turkeys are about ten weeks old, it may be time to move them to permanent outdoor quarters. Make sure they are healthy and strong, and nearing maturity, and the weather is favorable. If not, you may need to delay for a week or two. Do not delay too much longer than this, or you will most likely harm the birds.

Build the turkeys a roost (a roost is basically their house, like a coop is to a chicken). It should be suspended a couple of feet off the ground, with a wire mesh floor so that droppings can fall through. Make sure there are no places inside the roost where droppings will pile up, as this can cause disease and general bad health. The area under the roost should be cleaned weekly. Some people recommend making portable roosts to make cleaning easier.

The walls should also be wire mesh or poultry netting. Inside, the birds should be protected from sunlight and precipitation, so make the roof, and possibly the upper portions of the walls, out of somethin

When your turkey poults begin to mature, it becomes necessary to move them from their brooder. Unlike most birds, you do not move turkey poults directly from a brooder to a coop or other more permanent environment. First they need to be placed in a ‘brooder house’. They will be in this brooder house for about six to eight weeks.

The brooder house is a hybrid between living in the brooder and living outdoors, and is meant as a sort of stepping stone between the two stages. The three most important aspects of a brooder house are temperature, sanitation, and proper feeding and watering. Also, be sure to make the brooder house extra big because the poults will be two to three times larger by the time they are ready to be moved to permanent outdoor quarters.

Artificial temperature should be provided somehow, usually by overhead heat lamps. Start at about 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Decrease it gradually. For the last two weeks the chicks are in the brooder house, they sh