Turkeys

[manda]

I have some now (2 Toms and 2 hens just coming up for a year) and they free range with the chickens and then go off to bed with them at night.


The girls have started laying and sitting although I'm sure whether we'll actually have any chicks this year as they don't seem to have their act together yet.


I would say they eat a lot and if they're hungry they make a heck of a noise so you know and they take up a fair bit of room compared to a chicken if you're thinking of making housing (mine sleep in the shelter belt hedge so it's not been an issue and they have the option of the barn which they haven't used ). They are a bigger bird so the obvious is true too with regard to poo and it stinks!
Other than that they are lovely ...every morning I come in from work and Terry and Trevor (no relation ) come to say morning (although I know it's cupboard love and they just want food!). They are constantly gobbling away and showing off their fans actually they must get exhausted doing it because they are constantly showing off to each other and the girls (no wonder they eat so much food).

If you have the room then I'd say go for it they need to be able to wander - well the boys do - parading up and down requires space! The girls are less in your face and quieter so if you're not bothered by size of bird then they are the quieter option.

If you are wanting a substantial bird to eat then definitely get males because they are substantially bigger. Ours are just under a year and Terry (who is the bigger of the two) has got to be in the around 12 kgs (26lbs) now - we are not intensively feeding them but we have a chook tucker which both them and the chooks have, that's higher protein and has molasses mixed in to it too (smells gorgeous) and they seem to be doing well on it .

[Trev62]

Thanks for the info Manda We are considering raising two next year for the table, we are not sure if it would be cost effective but it would be fun.

[Sandra M]

This year hoped to hatch more but only got 2 so going to keep these 2 and hatch from their eggs next year for table birds and sell some of the poults. They are 12 weeks at the moment and as I have them in with some chicken growers I have been feeding them turkey and chicken growers in a 50/50 mix and they seem to be growing very well so hopefully the plan will work.

[Trev62]

Sandra M - it would be good if you could pop an update on here now and then for us to follow.

We are still at the maybe stage, is there a certain age or weight that they must reach before being killed (sorry I could not think of a better word)?

[manda]

We are still at the maybe stage, is there a certain age or weight that they must reach before being killed (sorry I could not think of a better word)?

Depends on the breed and also what you want in your Turkey (as weird as that might sound) Trev....which is a with many things we've found like pigs and chickens....white skinned / feathered as opposed to dark all about the look on the table (and the reason why the Large Black pig isn't commonly used in the commercial pork industry for example).

Does how it looks on the table matter to you?...white turkeys are the usual darker feathered turkeys have darker quills so you will see the darker feather shafts (because like with ducks they are difficult to completely remove when you dress the bird so you will see them)....we eat a lot of wild game so this doesn't bother us and we're more bothered about the taste than the look.
So...
Turkeys sold in the shops are Broad Breasted White (BBW) variety - grow larger and have more breast meat than heritage breeds. They grow quickly and so tend to be more cost effective because genetically they are designed to grow quickly. You would need to buy poults because they can't breed naturally so they would be ultimately from a hatchery.

The Heritage Breeds (Like the Bronze which we have) are slower growing with the darker feather shafts probably not as cost effective but better tasting and the bonus is now we have them we can keep breeding because they can breed naturally so we now have a sustainable / renewable source of meat.

Re Weight:
Depends how big you want your Turkey.....the BBW will grow quickly and you could have a dressed 12-14lb Turkey within 16-22 weeks .....25-30 weeks and they could be 15-20lbs. But Turkeys don't put on any fat under the skin and on top of the meat until 22 weeks. This fat is what makes the meat tender, moist and gives you the flavour.

The Bronzers grow slower so you will probably find they are the same weight coming up to 28-32 weeks - although I have to say ours are absolute lumps now I couldn't tell you how much they weight but I would hedge a bet they are around the 36-40lbs mark and they are a year.
I've also read in the US that those that know their turkeys harvest 2 year old hens for the best flavour and moist meat (hens have more fat).....obviously not something the commercial industry would do as not cost effective but that may be a project for the longer term.
You need to decide what weight you want for your bird as you're growing them then add 20-30% as that will give you the weight you want dressed. So if you want a 16lb bird then you need to grow to 20lbs ish.

This is a good post re processing a turkey from someone doing it in his back yard - I like these because it's how most people doing this at home would work.
https://howlingduckranch.wordpress.com/ ... y-turkeys-" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;warning-graphic-photo-documentary/

I don't know yet if them being older makes them tougher I'll let you know because the smaller of the two boys (sorry Trevor but it's your namesake!) is going to be going on the table - and will be around 14 months - apparently the taste is great I'll let you know re whether it's tough or not.

[Trev62]

Manda - Many thanks for the informative post and the link it contained, there are many good articles there to read.

Here last year we watched our Bulgarian neighbour cull all his Turkeys in one go with an axe and then he dumped them on the floor to bleed out. The ground looked like a battlefield by the time he had finished and made us rather determined to ensure that any culling we did would be done in a manner befitting whatever animal we had raised with care.

As for Trevor the Turkey if he is anything like me he will not be tough just weak and puny!! That's my pitch to save my namesake Did it work?

[Sandra M]

Our turkeys are Norfolk blacks I am hoping to get 2 more hens so we will have 3 girls to breed from next year my plan is to hatch some round April May time keep some for the table and Christmas and sell the spare poults. I went for Norfolk blacks because they can breed naturally and the single breasted take longer to fatten but with them breeding naturally we won't have to buy poults each year. We also fatten 3 pigs each year sell the meat from 2 and keep 1 for ourselves helps pay for our pig. We do the same with our chickens and ducks we eat the boys and sell some of the girls we hatch. We grow our own veg so most of our food is sorted.

[manda]

As for Trevor the Turkey if he is anything like me he will not be tough just weak and puny!! That's my pitch to save my namesake Did it work?

Nope husband is determined he's getting it
When we process him I'll take some pics so you can see the end result. Not expecting it to be anything exciting as we have processed geese before and they are big birds too

Our turkeys are Norfolk blacks I am hoping to get 2 more hens so we will have 3 girls to breed from next year my plan is to hatch some round April May time keep some for the table and Christmas and sell the spare poults. I went for Norfolk blacks because they can breed naturally and the single breasted take longer to fatten but with them breeding naturally we won't have to buy poults each year.

Totally agree and exactly why we got the bronzers here in NZ... there are wild turkeys not far from us so hubby might get some of them on his travels which would be interesting to compare taste wise.

We also fatten 3 pigs each year sell the meat from 2 and keep 1 for ourselves helps pay for our pig. We do the same with our chickens and ducks we eat the boys and sell some of the girls we hatch. We grow our own veg so most of our food is sorted.

We kept pigs for 5 years loved them but stopped a couple of years ago and now get a couple from our neighbour each year (so much easier!)....we've also got a supply of wild pork as a friend of ours pig hunts regularly. We have a bath outside with a big copper for heating up water so we can scald them outside and then hang them up in a very convenient tree next to it overnight in hubby's meat safe before we butcher them - we're in the process of making an outside area to butcher and have acquired a stainless steel counter top so we can process there (rather than on the dining room table LOL !)

We keep chickens free range - we did have around 200 at one time...they breed a lot here! We are down to around 30 now (they hawk has picked them off over the years) .

Never kept ducks but husband hunts so we have a lot of wild game as I said before - including duck, goose, Venison, and wild goat. Husband and small son. both fly fish so we have Salmon and Trout (which you can't buy over the counter in NZ) and we all go as a family eeling we'll get 4 eels and that is a couple of feeds for us (I like mine hot smoked hubby likes cold smoked).

Sorry I've digressed but I love talking about this.....

We have a big veg patch which we have had good results off but this year it's a mess and not done anything with it as I had surgery last year and haven't had the energy (although looks like that's improving so hopefully so will the veggie patch)...generally anything to do with charcuterie I am on it..love making sausages. smoking, cold smoking... but veggies I really need to work on - suffice to say if we were vegetarian we'd starve!

[Mo]

When we process him I'll take some pics

Manda is master of the euphemism

[manda]

When we process him I'll take some pics

Manda is master of the euphemism

Well Trev did say earlier he couldn't think of a nicer way to say kill

[Trev62]

Interesting and informative posts Manda and Sandra M thank you for the input.

Manda I look forward to the photos of Trevor when he is "processed", say "Hello" to him from me, oh........ and obviously "Goodbye" when his time comes

Thoroughly enjoyed the "digression" it made for good reading and gives an insight to another lifestyle, one I would hasten to add I (think?) I would have enjoyed experiencing. I hope you "digress" again at some point and broaden the picture of life where you are living. It did show, as we keep finding out, we have a lot to learn and a long, long way to go!!

But back to turkeys for now, I have no idea what breed they have here but the villagers all have some so I will attempt to get a picture and hold another ID parade to identify them.

I hope you recover so you can turn your attention to and have a successful vegetable patch next year!!! No doubt will we still be trying to turn our clay in to decent soil and still asking daft questions as we go along

[marilyn1952]

I did not know that we had a male turkey with our chickens. And he sat on 5 eggs and would not let me take them away from him so I let him keep them out of them 3 hatched and I took the chicks and put them in a cage but he kept calling them and they would not stop chipping so I put them back he was such a good mum or dad even when they were. Big that is why we had to rehouse him as one of his babies was a male and it whent for our cockral so our turkey mum whent to her baby's rescue and our Booker got the better and pecked his eye out I did not WHANT to give him up but my boy was rally big and I know he would have killed him anyway my friend had him to sit on there turkey eggs o I forgot to say I live in Spain in the country on the cost a del sol

[manda]

Interesting that the male was sitting on the eggs...I can't imagine our two doing that they're too busy strutting around showing off

That being said one of our girls off the nest the other day so I had a sneaky down to see what (if anything) she is sitting on...



No idea what the other one is on ...I can't catch her off the nest

If even half of them hatch we'll have a few poults running around ..they sit for 28 days ...just not sure when those 28 days are up because the spend so much time being unobtrusive we didn't notice when they disappeared initially ...so all we know is it will be soonish if it's going to be

[marilyn1952]

I did not intend for him to hatch any eggs it's just when I bent to get the eggs from him he when the into full attack mode and I did not argue with the big boy lol

[manda]

I did not intend for him to hatch any eggs it's just when I bent to get the eggs from him he when the into full attack mode and I did not argue with the big boy lol

Heck they're weird aren't they LOL! I love my chooks but I have to say the Turkeys are a whole different thing personality wise ...they are like the eccentric relative everyone loves but quietly giggles about.