There is a huge amount of information about raising chickens and chicks, and so very little about raising turkeys from poults. Any information you do find is almost guaranteed to be about raising commercial breeds like the Broad-Breasted White, in a commercial setting. When I started raising turkeys this lack of information was very intimidating to me. Through trial and error, I discovered that raising turkeys from poults (babies) is actually very easy and very similar to raising baby chicks with just a few key differences.
There are three main ways to get turkey poults.
1) Buy poults from your local feed store, which is nice because you can buy as few or as many as you want but often the feed store will have a limited variety.
2) Order from a hatchery, you need to order at least 10-15 at a time so they stay warm in shipping, I have split an order with a friend before and we then shared the shipping costs.
3) Hatch them yourself, either naturally or with an incubator. Some turkey breeds are better at hatching their own eggs, make sure you research the breed so your hatching is successful. The last option will require some searching online to buy or trade for fertile eggs if you don’t already own adult turkeys.
So let’s assume you’re at the stage where you’ll have the poults in your hand or will shortly have them. If you have a question regarding which breeds to buy or raise you can check out our earlier article ‘Are Heritage Turkeys Really Better’.
Brooder Set-up
Brooders are a secure pen for young poultry. Brooders provide a draft-free, warm and protected place for young poultry to grow during the first month or so of life. The setup for poults is the same for chicks, some type of brooder with wood shavings, a heat lamp, a baby ‘chick’ feeder, and a ‘chick’ waterer, something very shallow so the poults won’t drown. I use a large plastic tote in my house with a screen over it for the first two weeks before moving them outside to the chicken house. I kick my adult chickens out of the house for the summer since the have covered perches, nest boxes and feed outside and no nighttime predator issues. If you are buying poults from the store or hatchery, pop the little ones in their brooder as soon as you get them. If you are hatching with an incubator wait until their feathers dry out in the incubator and then put the poults in the brooder. If you are letting your female turkey hatch young then her job is just starting; you just need to make sure no poults are lost or left out at night, and that predators can’t eat the poults or adults. Again make sure the breed you pick will make a good mother. To date, I have not let my females hatch out eggs, but this might be the year, she went broody earlier this week, so fingers crossed.
Heat
I like to start with a 250w red heat lamp bulb, red so the poults will sleep at night, placed about a foot and half above the poults. The general rule of thumb for proper brooder temperature is just under 100°F and then reduce the temperature by 5 degrees per week until they are about 10 weeks of age. I personally always found this information confusing and I couldn’t remember the specific numbers, so I no longer worry about this method.
One of the easiest methods of adjusting brooder temperature is to watch your poults. You’ll know if the lamp is too close and hot because the poults will sleep either in the corners or as far away from the lamp as possible. If they are huddled in a ball on top of each other directly under the heat lamp then place the lamp closer. You want the poults to be comfortable sleeping under the heat lamp but not huddled tightly. The more feathers they obtain the warmer they will be. Pretty soon, you can switch to a 125w lamp depending upon if your brooder is outside or in. Just watch your birds. I personally raise my poults or chicks inside for a couple of weeks because it’s so cold in the spring this far north but that is completely up to you.
* A note on heat lamps- Please make sure the lamp is securely fastened to something so it can’t fall in the wood chips and start a fire. Heat lamps are extremely dangerous if not properly secured. I usually have heat lamps with clamps that are attached to screws securely fastened into the wall.
Food and Water
Now, if you are ordering from a hatchery you need to make sure the poults are watered immediately upon arrival, they are usually pretty dehydrated when they arrive in the mail. Gently hold their body and dip the tip of their bill in their water and watch for them to swallow. I’d repeat several times for each poult and do it again in about an hour. Unlike chicks, turkeys are not as easy to train to eat their food. Turkey females feed their young so the poults peck at her bill, unlike chicks that peck at the ground. I’ve tried a multitude of things to get my poults to eat, placing shiny marbles or large screws in their feeder so they are attracted to the object, tapping my fingers and scratching at the food, dribbling the food in front of the poults, and physically dipping their bill in the food. They do figure it out eventually but it takes a few days. Now, I’ve skipped all that and I just make sure I have 3-4 chicks in with my poults and the chicks teach the poults how to eat and drink much faster than I ever could. I’ve done this for a couple of years now and it works great.
Poults require a large amount of protein to develop, especially the commercial breeds which grow so fast. If you fail to feed them the correct protein regime their tendon will slip off the knee-joint and you’ll have to cull your poults. Again there are complicated instructions regarding feeding turkeys according to age. But this is what I do and it works great for both heritage and commercial breeds. I feed my turkeys, Turkey Grower Food or Wild Game Bird Food formulated with a high protein content of 28% for the first 2 months of life. After 2 months I feed them chicken layer pellets at 16% protein and also feed them black oil sunflower seeds (~2 cups a day), the kind you get for wild birds. If you do this, make sure the turkeys also have access to oyster shells or grit to help grind up the seeds. I also try to give them access to greens and insects. Turkeys are good foragers and can obtain a lot of food on their own if you are free ranging them. If you can’t free range them, dump grass and chickweed into their pen, they’ll gobble it up along with the insects hiding in the grass. Or feed them your food scraps, they’ll eat what a chicken eats.
Outside Housing
Once the poults are feathered out and large enough not to be able to slip through your fencing, usually 4-6 weeks they can happily live outside without heat of any kind, assuming it is above freezing, of course. They are big enough that they won’t drown in a normal watering bucket, usually, and they can eat normal size pellets. They also get along fine with older turkeys and can be housed with adults turkeys if you already have them. At about 3 months, if a heritage breed, they can fly over a 6 ft fence, see our article on ‘When Fences Fail‘, so I would strongly recommend an aviary netting. Turkey’s require shelter to protect them from inclement weather, rain, wind and excessive heat. They also prefer to roost like a chicken rather than on the ground, even if it is just a pallet propped up at an angle. For the bigger commercial breed’s they have a tendency to sit down instead of roosting as they get large so dry absorbent bedding for them is nice so they don’t sleep in the mud.
And that’s it. Raise until you feel like butchering or keep them overwinter.
Let me know how your poults do, and if you’ve had success with your females naturally incubating and rearing them themselves.
This is my first year raising turkey’s. I have 9. We ate a pastured turkey last year and it was delicious so I thought I would raise some. So far so good. I’ve done meat birds b4 and the process is pretty much the same. I couldn’t find 28% feed though and used 22%. It seems to have worked. Thanks for the article.
I can only find 22% protein feed at my feed store this year also. I used kitten food to help supplement their feed to get the protein levels up. I really think that the broad-breasted varieties need the most protein for muscle development. Good luck with the turkeys, they are really neat animals and provide so much meat.
Finding literature about raising turkeys is difficult. Trial and error for me. Thanks for sharing. I ordered a run of 10 midget whites from ideal poultry last year and have ended up with 2 females and 1 Tom! One female has hatched 11!! I have just started noticing 4 Little strutters😊 I am really enjoying watching them. I have raised chickens for several years and I’m thinking I like the turkeys better. I free range all day and they eat much less than the chickens do. I offer turkey grower in a self feeder. The chickens have layer crumble in a self feeder and the pens are open for all the birds to come and go as they please, so they eat either. So far no problems. Thanks for your article.
The toms start strutting so early, it makes me laugh to see these tiny things acting so mature! Thanks for sharing your feeding method, I am always surprised at how well they forage!