MANAGEMENT OF TURKEYS
The turkey is almost exclusively a farm product. It is possible to grow
a few good turkeys in confinement, but this is rarely done except in
experimental work or by persons who grow a few for amusement and for an
opportunity to study some of their characteristics. A few adult turkeys
may be kept on a small farm and remain about the homestead as other
poultry does. The turkeys themselves may get along very well, but they
are likely to abuse the fowls, and as they can easily fly over any
ordinary fence, they cannot be controlled except by putting them in
covered yards. Turkeys kept under such conditions cause so much trouble
that, after the novelty of watching them has worn off, the owner soon
disposes of them. It is where the farms are large and there is a great
deal of woodland and pasture through which the turkeys may roam without
strict regard to farm boundaries, and large grain and grass fields where
they can forage after the crops are removed, that turkeys in large
numbers are grown for market with good profit. On such farms, too, the
farmer, if he is a good breeder, can produce the finest exhibition
specimens.
=Size of flocks.= The number of turkeys kept on a farm for breeding
usually depends upon the number of young it is desired to rear, but the
difficulty of keeping more than one adult male with the flock tends to
restrict the annual production to what can be reared from one male.
Experience has taught that it is not advisable to have more than ten or
twelve females with one male. Sometimes a much larger number is kept
with one gobbler, and the eggs hatch well and produce thrifty poults;
oftener an excess of females is responsible for poor results which the
breeder attributes to other causes. The average hen turkey lays only
eighteen or twenty eggs in the spring. Some hens lay even less. Once in
a long time a turkey hen lays continuously for many months. A turkey
grower who raises eight or ten turkeys for each hen in his breeding
flock does very well. To do much better than this the hatches must be
exceptionally good and the losses very light. Those who grow turkeys for
profit expect them to pick the most of their living from the time they
are a few weeks old until they are ready to fatten for market. A grower
will, therefore, rarely undertake to hatch more young turkeys than he
thinks can find food on the available range. It takes a very large farm
to provide food for a hundred young turkeys and the old birds which
produced them, after the young ones are well started. On many large
farms where turkeys are grown regularly, not more than seventy or eighty
are ever hatched, and if losses are heavy, not more than two or three
dozen may be reared. A farmer who grows from seventy to a hundred
turkeys is in the business on a relatively large scale. Flocks of larger
size are sometimes seen in the fall, but not very often. The ordinary
farm flock of breeding turkeys rarely has less than three or four or
more than ten or twelve hens.
=Shelters and yards.= The wild turkey living in the woods, with only
such shelter from the rigors of Northern winters as the trees afford, is
perfectly hardy. Domestic turkeys are most thrifty when they roost high
in the open air yet are not fully exposed to storms and cold winds. If
left to themselves they usually select convenient trees near the farm
buildings, or mount to the ridge of a shed or a barn, or perch on a high
fence. A high perch to which they can mount by a succession of easy
flights has such an attraction for them that it is a common practice to
place strong perches between trees that are near together, or on tall,
stout poles set for the purpose, where other trees or buildings form a
windbreak. The turkeys, if at home, will not fail to go to such a roost
as night approaches. One of the most important tasks of the person who
has charge of a flock of turkeys is to see that the flock is at home
before nightfall.
After they begin to roost, young turkeys need no shelter in the spring
and summer. When chilly nights come in the fall, late-hatched turkeys
may do better housed than in the open. Turkeys that are well grown and
fully feathered do not need to be under cover in the winter except in
protracted or very severe storms. Turkey growers who wish to have the
birds partially under control, and want to be able to catch any one when
they need it, often have the birds roost in a shed or other outbuilding
available for the purpose. Such places should be very well ventilated,
or the turkeys will become soft and take colds.
[Illustration: Fig. 159. House and yards for stock turkeys on a
California ranch. (Photograph from the Bureau of Animal Industry, United
States Department of Agriculture)]
Yards are made for turkeys only to enable the person in charge of them
to keep them under control when necessary. The principal uses of the
yards are to confine the hens at the laying season and to separate birds
from the general flock when there is any occasion for this. A great deal
of trouble is sometimes saved by having a small yard for such purposes.
The height of fence required depends on the size and weight of the
turkeys and also upon whether they are in the habit of flying. A turkey
that is not accustomed to fly may not attempt to go over a fence four or
five feet high that has no top upon which it could alight. The same
bird, when confined in a strange place, might, without hesitation, fly
to a roof twice as high, because, although not in the habit of flying,
it has the power to fly such a distance and can see that the roof offers
a suitable place for alighting. A turkey in the habit of flying over
obstacles will often go over a fence six or seven feet high without
touching. A turkey hen that is laying will not fly as freely as one that
is not, because the weight and bulk of the eggs in her body encumber her
movements. For this reason a five-foot fence is usually high enough for
a yard for breeding stock, if they are to be confined to it only as much
as is necessary in order to make sure that the hens will lay at home.
=Feeding.= The natural diet of the turkey, like that of all birds of the
order of _Scratchers_, consists of a variety of vegetable and animal
foods. Turkeys eat the same things that fowls eat, and apparently in
about the same proportions, but their foraging habits are quite
different. The disposition of the fowl is to dig for its food wherever
it appears that anything is to be had by scratching. The turkey will
scratch a little, but it prefers to wander over the land, picking up the
food that is in sight. Fowls will forage from their house to the limits
of their usual range and return many times in the course of a day. A
flock of turkeys, if allowed to do so, leaves its roosting place in the
morning and makes a wide circuit, often returning home in the afternoon
from a direction nearly opposite to the direction they took in the
morning. On their circuit, which is likely to follow the same course day
after day, turkeys have their favorite feeding and resting places.
Persons familiar with the route of a flock can tell where they are
likely to be found at any hour of the day. If food becomes scarce on
their circuit, the turkeys extend it, or go on an exploring expedition
which takes them a long way from home. If night overtakes them at a
distance from home, they look for a convenient roosting place and remain
there.
[Illustration: Fig. 160. Turkey roost in shelter of barn on a Rhode
Island farm]
The feeding habits of the turkey make it especially valuable for
destroying grasshoppers and other insects that damage field crops. To
get an adequate idea of the great quantities of insects destroyed by a
flock of turkeys, and of the waste food that they save and turn to
profit by eating it, one should take careful note of the amount of food
consumed when the turkeys are fed all that they can eat at one time (as
when they are being fattened), and from this compute the amount that a
flock must pick in order to live, as many flocks do, from spring until
fall almost wholly upon what they get by foraging. Turkeys are much more
systematic foragers than fowls, working more in concert. A flock
advances in an irregular yet orderly formation, taking all the choice
food in its way, but not often tempted to side excursions which would
disperse the flock.
Many people who keep turkeys make a practice of feeding a little grain,
usually corn, in the evening as an inducement to them to come home. When
they require more food, they may be given whatever is fed to the fowls.
Indeed, unless some arrangement is made by which the fowls and turkeys
are fed separately, the turkeys may get the habit of being on hand when
the fowls are fed, and drive them from the food. This, however, is most
likely to happen when the range for the turkeys is so restricted that it
does not afford good picking.
=Breeding season and laying habits.= Experienced growers of turkeys like
to get their young turkeys hatched about the time when settled weather
may be expected in the spring. Little turkeys are less rugged than
little chickens, and are very sensitive to cold, damp weather. Although
the hens may have been very domestic all winter, when they begin to lay
they develop more of a roving disposition than is at all satisfactory to
their keeper. They are very likely to want to hide their nests. When
this is the case, and there is no yard in which they may be confined,
they make a great deal of trouble. They often go a long way from home to
find places for their nests, and make such wide circuits, and double on
their tracks so often in going and returning, that the nests are very
hard to find. There is nothing to do in such cases but to confine the
turkey or to follow her day after day until the nest is found. If she is
to be confined, it should be done as soon as she indicates that she does
not intend to take one of the nests provided or to make one at home.
When, in spite of efforts to prevent it, a turkey hen makes a nest at a
distance and has laid some eggs in it before the nest is discovered, it
is best to allow her to continue to lay there, but the eggs should be
removed as soon as laid. The egg of a turkey is about twice as large as
a hen's egg. The usual color is a light, slightly bluish, brown, with
small spots of a darker shade.
=Hatching and rearing.= Turkey eggs are often incubated by fowls. A
fowl will hatch the eggs just as well as a turkey hen, and may make as
good a mother for a few turkeys grown on a small place. For young
turkeys grown on the farm, turkey hens make the best mothers, because
they take them to better foraging ground and remain with them all the
season. It is a good plan, especially when there are more turkey eggs
than the turkey hens can cover, to set some fowls on the surplus eggs at
the same time that the turkey hens are set. Then, as there will rarely
be a full hatch from all nests, the young turkeys hatched by the fowls
will fill up the broods of the turkey mothers. A fowl will cover from
seven to nine turkey eggs. As a rule it is better to give the smaller
number. A turkey hen will cover from twelve to fifteen of her own eggs,
or even a larger number, but the young turkeys will be stronger if the
nest is not too full. The period of incubation is four weeks. Even when
normally strong and healthy, little turkeys appear weak in comparison
with lively young chickens and ducks or the more bulky goslings. They
may be fed the same as young chickens.
[Illustration: Fig. 161. Sheltered turkey nest. (Photograph from the
Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]
It is the common practice to confine the mother to a coop from which the
little turkeys can go to a small pen placed in front of it. The pen may
be made of wide boards placed on edge, or of light frames covered with
one-inch-mesh wire netting. The coop and pen should be moved before the
grass becomes much trampled and soiled. The little turkeys can be kept
in such an inclosure for only about a week or ten days. As they
increase in size, and as their wings grow, they fly over low obstacles
as easily and naturally as little chickens scratch or as little ducks
swim. Having once flown out of the pen, they cannot be kept in it or in
any inclosure that has not a high fence or a cover. When only two weeks
old, little Bronze Turkeys have been seen flying to the top of a
five-foot fence and, after a few efforts, reaching it with seeming ease.
No matter how contented old turkeys that produced them may have been in
confinement, young turkeys become restless as soon as their wings and
legs are strong, and, unless prevented from doing so, will begin to roam
long distances. They do not wait for the mother, whether fowl or turkey,
to take the initiative and lead them. If she is not disposed to rove,
they start and let her follow. A turkey hen quickly catches their spirit
and goes with them and keeps them together; a fowl is likely to follow
them reluctantly, allow them to scatter, and lose a part of the brood.
[Illustration: Fig. 162. Turkey brood coop. (Photograph from the Bureau
of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]
When the little turkeys have reached this stage, the best plan of
managing them depends upon circumstances. If there is little danger of
enemies disturbing them, they may be given a light feed in the morning
and then allowed to forage where they please, the person in charge
looking occasionally to see that they do not go too far and, if
necessary, bringing them back or starting them off in another direction.
In case of a sudden, hard shower the turkeys must be looked up, and if
any have been caught out in the rain and have been chilled and wet,
they should be warmed and dried at once. The usual way to do this is to
wrap the bird in a piece of old flannel and place it in an oven at a
temperature of about 100 degrees, or near a stove. If this is done
promptly, a bird that seemed to be nearly dead from wet and cold may be
running about as well as ever in an hour. A large part of the losses of
little turkeys is due to lack of attention in matters of this kind, or
to delaying it until the injury cannot be fully repaired.
[Illustration: Fig. 163. Turkey hen with brood. (Photograph from the
Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]
After the young turkeys are five or six weeks old, they do not need such
close watching. They are now so well feathered that their plumage sheds
rain, and if they are thrifty, a little wetting will not hurt them. It
is at this age that the symptoms of the disease called _blackhead_ begin
to appear, if it is present, and the turkeys pine away and die one by
one. Blackhead is a contagious liver disease which affects fowls as well
as turkeys, but is most fatal to young turkeys, because it is a filth
disease; as has been said, turkeys are especially sensitive to foul
conditions, and the young of all kinds of poultry are more sensitive to
such conditions than the adults. The germs of the disease pass into the
soil with the excrement of affected birds and may remain there for
several years. Young birds feeding on land containing these germs may
take up some with their food. If the birds are vigorous and thrifty and
the land is not badly infected, no harm may be done, but if the birds
are weakly and the land is so badly infected that they are constantly
taking up more germs, the disease soon develops in acute form.
[Illustration: Fig. 164. Driving turkeys to market in Tennessee.
(Photograph from the Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department
of Agriculture)]
Many people suppose that if once they have serious trouble with this
disease, it is useless for them to try to grow turkeys, but this is an
error. The germs of the disease are destroyed by cultivating the land
and exposing them to the sun and air. Three or four years of cultivation
will rid a piece of land of disease germs, no matter how badly it is
affected. The infection is not usually distributed in dangerous
quantities all over a farm or all over the land on which the turkeys and
fowls have ranged. It is principally on the land near the farm
buildings. There would be very little danger from diseases of this kind
on farms if those who feed the poultry would make it a practice to
scatter food on clean grass or cultivated ground at a little distance
from the buildings, instead of giving it (as too many do) on ground that
is bare year after year and never cultivated.
On a large farm the turkeys should not require close attention after
they are two months old. A little food may be given to them in the
morning and again in the evening, to keep them familiar with the person
in charge, and if they are inclined to stray too far, they should be
rounded up soon after noon and started toward home. Having started in
that direction, they may be left to come at their leisure. They should
pick the most of their living until the time comes to begin to fatten
them. Beginning about three weeks before they are to be killed, they
should be fed two or three times a day all the whole corn they will eat.