Growing turkey poults at home is a painstaking and interesting business.

It is not for nothing that the farmers call the king's bird turkey poults. Growing them at home has several benefits. Firstly, the turkey meat is dietary and extremely tasty, and secondly, the bird itself grows to an impressive size.

Read:Indoor women - breeding, maintenance, care at home in winter!

How to start growing turkey poults at home

There are several criteria by which poultry is selected for breeding. In appearance, healthy poults differ from weak ones, which immediately catches the eye.

Healthy chicks are active, clean, responsive to sound and light, the down is dry, soft, with an even coverage of the whole body.

Any draft is contraindicated for chicks, which should be taken into account, first of all, upon delivery. It is advisable to prepare the place in advance, since the high-quality maintenance of turkeys from the first day affects their condition and further development.

The cage where small turkeys are located should be warm, always dry and with the possibility of ventilation. It is best to install a pallet to make cleaning easier and cleaner for the chicks.

Such a dwelling is heated and illuminated with the help of ordinary and infrared lamps. After all, 3-5 day-old turkeys, which are harder to grow at home than young ones, should be kept at a temperature of 33-35 degrees. When the chicks are cool, they gather in heaps, try not to move, do not approach the stern, when it is hot, they can lie with their beaks open and wings outstretched.

The lack of light and heat in the cage, even for the shortest period, threatens crowding and piling of turkeys one on top of another in search of warmth, which leads to rapid death. This is especially true for chicks from 4 to 7 days old.

The cage should always have a drinking bowl with clean water at room temperature and a food tray. Moreover, it is necessary to ensure that the turkeys do not get wet and do not trample the feed. Therefore, to grow turkey poults at home for beginners it did not seem like a troublesome and complicated matter, vacuum drinkers and trays with sides are recommended.

Starting from the 10th day of life, turkey poults can be transferred to a freer cage with a temperature of about 20 degrees and an open-air cage for walking in the fresh air.

Correct feeding and diet

The nutrition of the chicks is very important. At the initial stage, when growing turkey poults at home, the diet is a combined feed with the necessary vitamins, trace elements, various natural additives.

Ready-made feed should not exclude the use of chicks, especially at the initial stage, mashed cottage cheese, steamed millet, boiled eggs. Turkey poults are happy to eat finely chopped greens (green onions, bum, nettle, carrot tops, clover).

For prevention of intestinal diseases drinking water may contain a small solution of manganese, and for better digestion, be sure to put a separate tray with fine gravel, shells and chalk.

In the early days, the risk of death associated with improper digestion is very high. If the turkey “froze” for a long time with his eyes closed, ruffled, drooped and dropped his feathers, then he has stomach problems.It is urgent to put a pea of ​​black pepper deeper into the beak.

In the first week, the turkey poults are poured with food every three hours, after that four meals a day are enough, with the obligatory addition of a mash to the diet.

Meshanka is a mixture of bran or chopped grain (millet, rolled oats, wheat) with herbs, sour milk. The mixture should always be fresh, crumbly and not sour. It should be given so much that the poults can cope with it within 15-20 minutes.

Starting from 1.5 months of age, turkey poults are fed only with dry food, herbs, finely chopped vegetables.

Knowing how to care for turkeys from the first days, providing them with correct and balanced nutrition, good living conditions, you can avoid unpleasant moments associated with diseases and death of chicks.

Features of walking turkey poults in an aviary

Raising poultry means having a special and free space for them to walk. Therefore, starting from 10-13 days of life, turkeys need to be released into fresh air.

For this lesson, an aviary should be equipped, fenced and covered with a net to protect against drafts and predators. It is better if the entire territory of the enclosure is covered with sand or sawdust.

As with a pen, drinkers and feed trays should be present. Turkey poults, especially on warm, hot days, consume a lot of water, you need to monitor its amount.

In addition to feeders, place trays for gravel, shell, chalk in the aviary.

The heat also adversely affects the condition of the bird, they can refuse food, move little, and this leads to slow growth and weight gain. Therefore, the aviary should be equipped with several places with a canopy.

Turkey poults love to climb, take off on perches, which must also be installed in the main pen and in the aviary.

Small home-grown turkey poults are afraid of dampness and moisture. Do not let them out into the fresh air through dew, as well as immediately after rain.

Features of temperature and light conditions

Little chicks need round-the-clock lighting. For this, the lamps are placed at a distance of 1.5-2 meters from the location of the birds. In the early days, this is necessary for their full adaptation, finding feeders and trays with water.

If you arrange lamps with a blue or green tint, the bird will grow more actively. Also, for rapid growth, daylight hours, on the contrary, are extended. The use of fluorescent light bulbs will significantly reduce energy consumption.

With each day of growing up, daylight hours should decrease slightly, and eventually come down to 16 hours.

Turkey poults from birth do not know how to keep their body warm, and acquire such skills only by the age of two weeks. Ensuring proper thermoregulation is the main condition for successfully raising turkey poults at home.

The first 4-5 days, the temperature in the house or cage should be kept at 33-35 degrees, and only after 10 days can you gradually begin to reduce it to 22-20 degrees.

In this case, incandescent lamps are located at the edges of the heated room, and not in the center. Thus, the chicks will be able to choose a more comfortable place for themselves.

Heaters are never used to keep the cage warm, nor are they installed on the sides to avoid poultry crowding to the warmer edge.

Proper cultivation of turkey poults at home (there are plenty of videos on this topic on the Internet) provides for separate maintenance from other types of poultry, to exclude the transmission of infectious diseases.

Features of the behavior of turkey poults

Sometimes, among turkey poults, there is such a phenomenon as cannibalism. It is expressed in the pecking of both its own body and the body of its relatives.

Causes:

• dry environment in the house, lack of water;
• poor maintenance, feather parasites, insects;
• improper diet, lack or excess of protein;
• adding new turkey poults to a group of birds.

When wounds, scratches, turkey poults appear on the skin, feeling itching, they peck at the diseased surface even more, which leads to deeper wounds and damage. For this reason, many young animals die.

To avoid this, you need to know how to raise turkey poults, protecting them from such a phenomenon.

Prevention methods:

• monitor a sufficient amount of fiber in the diet of turkeys;
• avoid crowding, providing a good walking area;
• monitor the cleanliness of the room, carry out disinfection actions before moving in;
• add abrasive substances to grind down beaks;
• keep in a bright room, avoid bright aggressive colors;
• beak cutting - only as a last resort.

Sometimes, in order to avoid the spread of mass cannibalism, it is necessary to resettle or remove the most aggressive turkey poults.

Growing turkey poults at home is the most profitable and advantageous option, it is not easy, but it pays for itself quickly. By showing maximum attention to the chicks, especially in the first two weeks of their life, you can absolutely do without serious losses and, as a result, get tasty dietary meat.

Problems of growing turkey poults - video