Turkeys – three weeks old

On Thursday we will have had our turkey flock of 2024 for three weeks……Oh how they have changed in that time!
We keep the turkeys in hoop shaped pens initially which means that the heat generated by the gas brooders is evenly distributed across each pen and due to the curved walls no birds can be squashed in a corner.
After a week or so we join pairs of pens together to give the birds more space, this time we have curved walls at the ends and straight walls in the middle. This means again no squashing in corners!
The birds love this arrangement and it is such a joy to see them running and cheeping with their wings outstretched across the new space.
Turkeys are naturally very inquisitive animals and seem to like to get up to mischief. With the extra space they have more runway to get some upward lift which results in escapees ready to explore! However turkeys seem to be able to fly out of their pens they seemingly can’t ever find their way back in!
After a few days of rounding up multiple turkeys numerous times throughout the day it is time to take the pens away and combine the whole flock. Now this is a very tricky task as the turkeys are keen on helping and are always under your feet!!
All changes with turkeys have to be made gradually so every couple of days we swap some small poult feeders for a large ‘grown up’ turkey feeders.
Over the next week or so we will be turning the heat down in the brooder room as we prepare the birds for their next accommodation move where we will open up the wall into the rest of the shed for lots more room!
The turkeys have now gone from tiny fluff balls to mini turkeys and are now really developing their feathers. In the last three weeks they have over tripled in size, their growth just amazes us every year.
When you are turkey farming (turkeys are notoriously tricky to rear in the early days) you never take anything for granted but to date we have had the best ‘brooding’ season ever. The weather has really been on our side with no drastic winds and a fairly consistent temperature. Long may a good turkey season continue!!