Keep the turkey hens tame by feeding them close to the house. Have two
or three barrels in sheltered corners containing plenty of straw or
leaves for them to lay in. Gather the eggs every evening, as turkey
eggs are very easily chilled. Keep the eggs in a woolen cloth on end
and turn them every three days. Set the first seven eggs under a
chicken hen, as they get too old before the turkey hen will go to
sitting. Make a board pen ten or twelve feet square and twelve or
fourteen inches high. Put a coop in it and put your hen and turkeys in
it. Feed the hen with corn and the turkeys soaked wheat bread (corn
meal will kill them), until they are a week old (I feed five or six
times a day). Then feed wheat until they are big enough to eat corn.
Give plenty of fresh water in a shallow vessel. Keep the mother in
the pen until they are large enough to fly over the top of the boards.
Let them out awhile about the middle of the day. Shut them in at
night. A turkey hen does not like to be shut up, but have a good big
coop for her and she will go in. Don't let the little turkeys get
their backs wet until they are feathered. The turkey hen will sit down
when night comes just where she happens to be, but if you drive her
home a few times she will come herself after that. Always feed them
when they come home, no matter if they are full of "hoppers." Have
your No. 2 pen in the orchard under an apple tree where it is shady.
Have the turkey hen's pen close to the chicken hen's pen, so that when
the chicken hen weans her turkeys, they will soon learn to go with the
turkey hen. Give them a dose of black pepper in their feed every cold
rain. And never, no never, get excited and in a hurry while working
with turkeys if you don't want them to get wild and fly all over the
plantation. Three or four weeks before selling, feed all the corn they
will eat.