Anybody raise turkeys?

notjustair

Well-known Member
I usually do about 100 chickens a year, but turkeys are new to me.

Yesterday had one that was fighting with everyone. Today he had a real bloody head - they were tired of him! I pulled him (or her, too early to tell) out. With chickens I put them back in after they have healed - are turkeys like that?

I didn't clip beaks and rather not go to the trouble. I've only got a dozen - can I get by with leaving their beaks? They are just shy of two months. If they were chickens I would just grind a little off there with the bench grinder - would that work?

Turkeys are definately dumb - I'll tell you that.
 
My son-in-law raises 120,000 a year. Once the Turkeys find a odd spot on a fellow Turkey, they will keep pecking and if not separated, they will kill it. He walks the barns every morning disposing of the unfortunate.
 
Don't know if they are confined or not, but a trick with chickens that are pecking one is using red light- they can't see the red blood, so will stop pecking. At least in theory.
 
Toss in some green fresh grass clippings or some alfalfa hay for them to peck. Many times pecking is caused by too warm of an environment.
 
i raise royal palm turkey ( white ones ). used to do the bronze as well.

if they pick too much.. salt their water. used to you could buy a blue salt powder called pick-not sold mainly for chicken.. but works with most foul.

you can also get some comb dressing if his head is bleeding bad.

the salted water usually stops picking and canibilization pretty fast.

if i have a turket that won't for whatever reason get along with the others.. or is bullied and won't recover.. i put em in with the chickens. they don't mind.

i don't clip beaks..e tc. I have put wire nuts on some large leghorn and RIR monster roosters before though.. been spured bad enough to go to an outpatient clinic to get an inch of spur removed that broke off deep one time. that and a tetanus shot and a week long course of antibiotics :)
 
My uncle used to raise 100,000 or so a year . Turkeys were my summer job for many ,many years . Like you said ,,anything odd ,they will peck untill dead . Had to pick up dead birds every day or they got pretty ripe real fast. Falling threw the pitchfork ripe .
 
I'm not sure they're dumb. We had two wild hens last year, raise 9 babies up to grown size. They were here for 2 months. They'd patrol the yard, the side yard, the fields and woods, all together. In a row, one hen on each end. They'd patrol in line, like Boy Scouts doing camp clean-up. Pecking for grubs or worms or whatever. Our two old cats huddled together on the porch, the hair bristled up on thier backs, I got the impression the mama hens had 'splained how things were gonna be to the two cats.
 

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