Greetings!

I was wondering if anyone on here had turkeys, and if they do, do you only have them for meat or for the eggs? Most people I've met that have turkeys farm them for their meat, but I read the eggs are also pretty tasty. I'm interesting in getting a few turkeys and putting them in a coup, but I won't do it for the meat, seeing as nobody in my family likes roast turkey.

Thanks for any advice and/or thoughts!

Might hold off on that for awhile Johan

https://listen.sdpb.org/busine...

Thanks Rj, good to know. It doesn't seem like it's reached the Black Hills yet, though. If they're penned up, would the flu still spread? Our bronze turkeys around here are still really healthy.

Maybe give this group a call

https://aib.sd.gov/poultry.htm...

Thanks, I'll probably give 'em a call. It still was going to be a while before I decided whether or not to keep turkeys anyway.

Apparently the bird flu can be spread by wild birds so I guess it could turn up anywhere.

More info:
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/new...
Avian flu expands to Minnesota poultry, flocks in other states
Filed Under: Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)
Lisa Schnirring | News Editor | CIDRAP News | Mar 28, 2022
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Minnesota reported its first highly pathogenic avian flu outbreaks, affecting flocks in three counties, as three more states—Colorado, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania—reported their first detections in waterfowl.

Also, four earlier affected states reported more outbreaks in poultry, part of activity involving the Eurasian H5N1 strain. The development in Minnesota lifts the number of states reporting poultry outbreaks in 2022 to 18. So far, the outbreaks have led to the loss of about 14.4 million birds.

Expanding Midwest foothold
In a Mar 26 announcement, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said one Minnesot outbreak occurred at a commercial turkey farm in Meeker County, located about 67 miles west of Minneapolis. The second outbreak struck a backyard flock in Mower County, located in southeastern Minnesota on the Iowa border.

In addition, the Minnesota Board of Animal Health (MBAH) reported a third outbreak at a turkey farm in Stearns County, which neighbors Meeker County to the north. So far, the outbreaks have affected 313,017 birds, of which 289,000 were at the Meeker County farm.

The outbreaks are Minnesota's first highly pathogenic events since 2015. Minnesota officials said that, in the Meeker County outbreak, farm operators noticed an increase in turkey deaths and depression symptoms. They added that the Mower County farmer also notice an increase in deaths in the backyard flock, which included chickens, ducks, and geese.

Outbreaks in Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, South Dakota
In related developments, four states that reported earlier outbreaks reported more detections on farms and in backyard flocks.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship said the virus struck a commercial pullet farm in Franklin County, which is in the north central part of the state. So far, Iowa has reported seven outbreaks.

Michigan reported two more outbreaks in backyard flocks, raising its total to three, according to the APHIS poultry outbreak page. In the latest events, the virus struck a holding in Macomb County, which covers the northeast part of Detroit and its suburbs. The premises keeps 86 mixed-species birds. The other outbreak is in Monroe County, in the state's southeast corner on the Ohio border, at a facility that houses 175 mixed-species birds.

In Nebraska, officials reported two more outbreaks, bringing its total to four. One involves a commercial broiler farm in Butler County that houses 417,000 chickens. Butler County is in the east central part of the state, about 50 miles west of Omaha. The other location is a small backyard mixed flock in Holt County in the north central region.

Elsewhere, South Dakota reported its twelfth outbreak, which involves a commercial turkey farm housing 45,000 birds in Jerauld County, in the east central part of the state, according to APHIS.

First waterfowl detections in 3 states
Three more states reported their first detections in wild birds, according the APHIS wild bird detection page, which now lists 472 such events since January.

In Colorado, tests on six geese found dead in Sedgwick County were positive for H5N1. Sedgwick County is in the far northeast corner of the state on the Nebraska border.

North Dakota's first detection involves a snow goose found dead in Burleigh County, which is in the central part of the state and includes Bismarck.

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Game Commission on Mar 25 reported that the virus was detected in a wild bald eagle found dead in East Marlborough Township in Chester County, just west of Philadelphia.

Scary!

A lot of the neighbors around here have ducks and snow geese as pets. I hope they don't start dropping.

Back to your original question, I used to have turkeys, but don't any longer. The eggs are good to eat, and extra good for baking. They are slightly larger then chicken eggs, at least the Royal Palms that I had. They don't lay eggs over the winter though, just usually starting in April, and as long as you take the eggs away and don't let them hatch the eggs, they will keep laying throughout much of the summer months. They do eat a lot though, so from an economical point of view, they are more expensive to keep just for eggs then chickens would be.

Thanks, the information is much appreciated, Tom. I read that up to 50% of raised turkeys' diets can contain range grass, and another good 20% can be food scraps. This way the amount of feed needed to be bought is minimized. But I was kind of skeptical when I first read that about the grass; I believe it's true that they can eat it, but I don't see how it would be 50% of their diet (in the wild, insects, nuts, and oats are a big portion of their diet). Did you ever feed your turkeys range grass?

I let them free range during the day and locked them in at night to keep them safe from critters. They eat a lot of insects, and plants, but I always kept their feeders full of grain so they had free choice of grains when they wanted it. During the winter though, there's not much to free range on, so they only had grain then. I'm not sure if the modern broad breasted birds are as good at free ranging as the heirloom varieties.

I would just raise regular bronze turkeys, so not a fancy modern breed.

Why did you stop raising turkeys? Too costly?

No, my hen got old and died, and then my last remaining Tom got killed by a racoon when he was about 7 years old. There's a turkey thread on here somewhere, you can read about them on there. I just never replaced them.

Be sure not to get the bronze broad breasted ones.

Oh, are the broad-breasted bad layers? I'll have to see what type of bronze I'd have.

ETA: I think I found the turkey thread. Thanks for letting me know about it!

I'm not sure how many eggs the broad breasted turkeys lay, but they are gigantic and need a lot of food, I doubt they will survive on just free range. They can't mate naturally, and need to be artificially inseminated to reproduce. They might have a shorter life span as well.

Ok. I don't think we have broad-breasted. I'm just going to catch some of the bronze turkey babies this year (the turkeys move through our property every spring and summer, but don't roost or stay), and those definitely mate naturally.

Good luck with that, be careful, the tom's are very protective of their families. Let us know how that works.

Hi, I'm late to this thread a bit but I'd love to share my experience with Narragansett turkeys.

I got one male poult and one female poult in June of last year from an independent breeder. They were the offspring of a Narragansett hen and an Oregon gray tom (a supposedly 'extinct' heritage variety but the genes to create them are out there). I got them for my own enjoyment without a specific use in mind for them. I chose to keep them with my chicken flock which you will probably read that you are not supposed to do that because of the risk of an avian disease called blackhead. However, I have not heard of anyone in MA encountering this and the breeder has rasied generations of poults from different species that live together. I would check with local USDA and vets on this before raising with chickens.

The other issue to consider is chicken aggression against vulnerable poults. I raised my poults in a subdivision I created in the run until they were strong, and my hens didn't bother them much since they are pretty old.

Once mature my Tom was mostly a stellar gentleman as all Toms should be. They should be bright, alert, and responsive when you approach the run and gobble once or twice at your presence. He strutted displayed often for his turkey wife who did not reciprocate with mating . I speak in past tense for him since he became thanksgiving. I wasn't planning on making him food at first but he was perfectly 28 weeks of age at the time.

He was delicious. I had never eaten anything other than supermarket turkey and it was quite different. Forget any conceptions about turkey being dry because he was juicy and flavorful, quite fat too like almost duck levels of fat. LOTS of dark meat. so dark it was red and akin to moist pork tenderloin. But plenty of white meat too. He was 19lbs after processing. I still have his feet in the freezer. He would have made a great breeder; not aggressive to any of my birds and was pretty quiet.

My hen has not laid any eggs yet but its said to take them awhile to start laying. She gets along well with chickens. I was worried she would get lonely, but she cuddles up with my hens and shows no lethargy or depression.

This spring I want to consider doing a bird swap to have a Tom live with my flock for a bit and get a few poults outte my hen.

Hope this helps! Turkeys are a joy and very entertaining, cute, and a pleasure to own.

Awesome, thanks for the info, Audrey! Your turkeys look exactly like the ones we have here (wild).

And to NGA!