The Good, the Bad, the Turkey!

Shaneen Smith
Nov 1, 2021
4 min read

Our first year raising turkey was not easy, but we learned alot. Read on to hear about our trials and tribulations of raising turkey.

There is alot of conflicting information out there on how to raise turkey. I found it very stressful choosing who's advice to use. This blog post is a list of experiences we had, and routes we took to help our flock.

In our new sustainable lifestyle journey, we knew we wanted to raise free range, ethically raised turkey as a means to feed our family and our community.

Our smart goal was to raise turkey in our second year, but sometimes things happen a lot sooner than expected!

Someone we knew was raising turkey and was moving out of town and asked us of we would be interested in their flock. Were we ready? HECK NO! So on that note, we built a temporary pen out of free wood pallets. We did not want to build a permanent pen, as we we were still in the land planning stages of our business.

These beautiful birds had to be picked up within 3 days. We built a transport pen and our temporary turkey pen within 2 days. On the fourth day we drove 16 hours to pickup our toms and hens.

At first glance, they seemed ugly, but if you stare at them long enough, they are actually very beautiful. Turkey are very smart, inquisitive and very social animals (I might actually enjoy raising them more than chickens 😲)

Turkey hens make the most beautiful cooing noise - we are unsure what it means, but it might mean they are content. If you know what the sound means, please let us know in the comments below.

Here are some hard lessons learned - maybe they can help you on your turkey raising journey!

My pride was pushing me to sugar-coat my mistakes - but I decided to offer all of my uncut, raw experiences so others could learn from them. "The mistakes we made forced us to grow and learn through experience. We will do better for 2020!"

Lesson #1 - Chicken and turkey don't mix

Blackhead Disease - sounds terrible right? Histomoniasis aka Blackhead Disease does not actually cause a turkey's head to turn black (this was my initial thought). I read that turkey should not mingle with chickens, however I was also told from some farmers that turkey and chickens co-exist just fine. So I went ahead and allowed my turkey to free range with my hens. Here is the thing, chickens carry and pass this parasite onto turkey but are immune to the parasite. Earthworms also carry the parasite, so if your turkey eats an earthworm, they could get blackhead disease. One of my turkey was pooping sulphur-yellow poop, without exaggeration it was glowing! I quickly separated the bird from the others and herd the other turkey into their pen. I was desperate to save my turkey, so I quickly enlisted Google for the task. I read lengthy forums, scientific and university posted information, and Blackhead disease suited the symptoms. Oddly, she was the only bird to contract the parasite.

I came across a forum on Homesteading Today, listing Fenbendozole as a treatment for Blackhead Disease. I continued my search for more truth on this, and came across these two very interesting articles.

The Mississippi State University discusses Fenbendozole and its use for parasites in poultry. They list a range of other treatments for poultry that have been used successfully. These treatments have not been approved by the FDA, so should not be used for poultry raised for eggs or human consumption. Checkout the article here.

Out of desperation, I tried the Mississippi State University Fenbendozole treatment - I tagged this bird, to ensure we did not process her later. So a pea sized drop of Fenbendozole in her mouth and within 48 hours he was a perky turkey and she still lives with us today.

Be sure to read this PDF by the Animal Science Connecticut. It offers a clear and easy to understand list of parasites and how they affect poultry.

Lesson #2 - Turkey eat everything

On a beautiful sunny day in April, I learned that turkey eat everything - even each other 😖 This heartbreaking incident happened quickly and within a time slot of 2 hours. If a turkey is injured in a fight and goes down, before you know it the entire flock will peck their buddy to injury or even death. We found our turkey injured, we did right by the bird and euthanized.

Once again Google to the rescue - I found this great article on the Poultry Site on cannibalism in poultry. We made some adjustments immediately, we have not had a problem since. We had a hard time finding a creditable article only for cannibalism in turkey, but this article discussed poultry in general.

The adjustments we made:

We made our pen much larger - rule of thumb 3 square feet per turkey.
We added more sectioned pens to separate more birds when necessary.
8:1 Ratio (hens vs toms).

Lesson #3 - Turkey fly

I knew turkey could fly, but I did not know they could easily catch wind and fly up to 30 feet high. So we had turkey on our shop roof, that was fun!

Lesson #4 - Fear of frozen turkey

I was afraid our turkey were not going to survive our Cariboo minus 35 winter. Facebook to the rescue this time, I reached out to a local farmer, and he said they will do just fine. Give them a coop to go into if they choose . . .

Lesson #5 - Turkey coop

. . . so on that note, we built a cozy covered area for them 'lickety split' (we were so proud of ourselves) - then - they never even used it 😢 Go figure. They preferred to roost outside, they survived the cariboo winter doing whatever they chose, and they look amazing!

"DUDE I'm stuck!" Assisted Hatch with a Turkey Poult

This little one was malpositioned and stuck in the shell too long.

Our goal is to raise our animals ethically and offer them the best lives possible. We choose to learn from our mistakes, document them for our future reference, and who knows, maybe our mistakes or farm hacks can help others in their farming journey!

~ Cariboo Blue Farm