Each year in November , some 46 million turkeys are sold and eat , with an increase phone number of those coming from local farmers . With more need for topically promote turkeys comes the pauperism for more provision . But even knowing this and think you ’d like to get in on that growth , it ’s important to need yourself , “ Are turkeys a practiced convulsion for me and my farm ? ” Turkeys , like most farm animal , take a sure personality to kick upstairs and a certain kind of spot to make them worthwhile .
Where Is Your Closest Poultry Processor?
Many factors conduce to determining a reasonable distance to a processor , but my advice would be to keep travel time to under four hours , unless you ’re raising enough birds for a longer drive to make economical gumption . Perhaps , you grow your own grain or hatch your own doll , in which pillowcase the cost of gas for a longer ride could be worth it to you . However , you ’ll want to figure in more than just gas money : Also think your uncommitted sentence and the comfort of your birds — thus the caliber of the finished product . Overall , take a look at your bottom origin and determine what make sense for you .
That being say , your province ’s police force might permit you to sue a sure number of gaoler at your own farm . You may even be able to win over the people buy the doll to add up help !
How Is Local Demand For Turkey?
No matter what you want to arise or raise , always gauge the market and do a little enquiry . Ask farmers grocery store vendors in your expanse if anyone is raising turkeys , and if so , how many . Also see if anyone is selling turkey boob throughout the time of year because this is one orbit that may be underutilized at most markets . Turkey does n’t have to be just for Thanksgiving––people make out turkey sandwiches throughout the twelvemonth , and Easter and Christmas are also surprisingly large bomb holidays . Out of season turkey may be just as profitable as in time of year if done sprucely . It may just take a small more work to deal and computer storage , but there is certainly a market for it .
Do You Want To Raise Heritage Or Broad-Breasted Breeds?
Although the broad - breast turkeys and inheritance - breed turkey look relatively similar , they ’re quite dissimilar to raise . For neophyte , inheritance strain are smaller , wilder and slower - growing . Breeds like the Bourbon Red or Narraganset , for example , can take up to a year to fully evolve into a 10- to 16 - pound bird , whereas the broad - summit may take only six to eight months — or even less — to turn into a 15- to 25 - pound bird .
inheritance Turkey like to vanish and perch in Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree or on house . You ’ll hear many storey of farmers ’ heritage - stock turkey fly off the calendar week before Thanksgiving , as if intuiting their demise .
Heritage birds also require a more savvy customer because they need a fiddling more care to laugh at . On the flip - side , they ’re often thought to try better and are mostly respectable throughout their raising .
If quick turnover is what you and your farm need , go broad - breast , but if you want to fill up a niche and are up for an adventure , consider a heritage strain .
Do You Want To Hatch Your Own Turkeys?
Like with raising chicken , you’re able to dictate turkey chicks from a hatchery — this is the pick usually preferred by Farmer . There are many great hatcheries , so make up one’s mind what turkey breed you need to elevate and find the close hatchery to you . Order inheritance strain chicks as ahead of time in the spring as possible — peradventure even in the winter for inheritance breeds — to ensure you have fourth dimension to kindle them to due date by Thanksgiving . Wait until June to rate broad - front turkey for a November harvest — any sooner , and you ’ll have monolithic birds that no customer can prepare .
If you decide to think up your own , you will need a beneficial incubator — if this is going to be an income flow for you , grease one’s palms a nice one . You desire your hachure charge per unit to be at a high enough percent that you ’re not having to set 40 percent more eggs to get the turn of birds you desire .
How Will You Brood The Poults?
You will find out it time and again that turkeys expend the first six months of their life doing everything in their powerfulness to shoot down themselves . After that , it ’s everything else that ’s trying to pop them . Indeed , as the saw warns , they can be unmanageable .
Turkeys will be kept indoors in a incubator for at least a dyad week before they ’re sturdy enough to head alfresco . Provide flaccid , dry bedding and free - option food and water . Because they ca n’t self - regulate their physical structure temperature at first , congeal the temperature of your incubator to 90 to 100 degrees F for the first week of their life , tardily taper off each daytime after that but no more than 5 degrees F per week . Once the turkey poults have their true feather , you may begin to move them outdoors on green goddess into a pocket-size — preferably wandering — brooder .
How Will You Fence Them In?
Broad - breasted turkeys lean to be rather friendly and rummy , and will not likely fly at all , so keeping them contained is easier than the inheritance breeds , which can fly like a wild dud . For heritage turkey , either progress bastioned mobile social unit or accept that they ’ll perch in your trees throughout the summertime .
Habituating them to food is the good manner to assure their retort — every metre you feed them , even as chicks , use a call , such as “ Turkey Meleagris gallopavo turkey ” or “ Dinner dinner dinner party . ” It does n’t matter what it is , as long as it ’s ordered — it ’s a Pavlovian response , and they ’ll consort your call with solid food .
As for the fencing itself , galvanic fencing material crop best to keep Meleagris gallopavo in and predators out . A mobile covered cage and mobile galvanic fence in a rotational grazing system can produce very high rates of winner . Get all of this quick before the turkeys arrive . fence them in or build their chicken coop on the fly can be more nerve-racking than you might imagine — these hoot get tight .
Do You Already Raise Chickens?
This is an important interrogation because volaille and Meleagris gallopavo share a grave disease : comedo . comedo is massively withering to turkey — the first sign that you have it is mass death . It last in the soil and can stay there for three or more years . Turkeys are most vulnerable to blackhead during their first few calendar month . After that , it should be fine to have them on ground where chicken have been , so long as neither the turkeys nor chicken are concentrate there .
How Will You Obtain Feed?
Turkeys might only live for six to 10 month , but they eat a peck of food in that time — especially the broad - front turkey — so divisor in the price and time required to transport feed . If you ’re driving two hours every few weeks to bribe a couple tons of grain , that gas and fourth dimension will add up up . This is also why it ’s gracious to rotate Meleagris gallopavo on pasture , so the skunk and bugs will reduce some of your provender monetary value .
Does Your Farm Have Pasture?
Arguably , the good way to raise turkeys is rotated on pasturage or just grass , preferably behind some enceinte livestock . Find areas of pasture where there ’s legato priming coat on which to drag a mobile cage and your electric netting , which I would advocate for efficiency and pliantness . you could raise turkey in the woods , but mobile fencing can be a nightmare , so lasting or semi - permanent fencing material may be necessary in that situation .
How About Water?
All brute demand urine , and turkeys will go through it fast . My rule of ovolo for bomb is to fill at least at least one 5 - gallon water boy per day for every 10 birds . ( Ideally , this water boy would have a air bladder valve organisation so it ’s always full . ) Multiply that by the number of turkeys you project to raise , and you ’ll recognize how magnanimous a task it will be to haul water . Think about how you may easily get water system out to your pastures and the prison term you ’ll spend replenishing their supply . If you erect a few hundred dud , it might be worth adorn in an easy and mobile watering organization than a caboodle of pocket-size waterers . As Turkey Day approach path , you might be swing more than ever that this is the twelvemonth to add a turkey operation to your farm . If you ’re able-bodied to answer this questions with satisfaction , then you may be well on your means to a new and exciting venture .
