Heritage Turkey Coop Tour

In this coop tour, Amanda and Sarah from the Customer Service Remote Team are at Sarah’s farm to show you their new heritage turkey poults and give you a tour of Sarah’s coops.

Since there is a minimum of 20 on heritage turkeys, Amanda and Sarah decided to split an order. Here Sarah has her draft free stock tank brooder set up for the poults with a waterers with a very shallow bottom because turkeys can drown. The brooder is in the garage where it is already very warm but using a thermometer and raising or lowering the heat lamp keeps the temperature between 90-95*F because poults (and chicks) cannot control their body temperature without feathers at this age. The poults are active and running around, not huddled together, so the temperature is just right. Sarah is feeding them a 27% protein organic unmedicated gamebird starter feed from Meyer Hatchery and has Corid on hand if the poults show signs of coccidiosis. Amanda uses the medicated feed from Meyer Hatchery so she wouldn’t need to use the Corid product.

Also in the garage next to the poults, Sarah has a brooder set up for her 6 week old chicks that were hatched from her own fertilized eggs by a local teacher in her classroom. The brooder panels make it simple to set up any size brooder and are easy to clean. Sarah has a group of 4 week old chicks separated to slowly introduce the two groups together to reduce the amount of pecking when integrating the two age groups.

Now heading out to the yard to see the rest of Sarah’s flock and her coops. Sarah has an aggressive rooster that she caged up ahead of time so they didn’t make a blooper in this video. He protects the whole flock from hawks and other predators, plus fertilizes the eggs so she can hatch out her own chicks. The chickens have a large fenced-in area to free range and access to two large coops so they are never crowded which reduces henpecking even with 70+ birds. The chickens dig little holes in the yard to which Sarah adds diatomaceous earth to help control mites and lice when they dust bathe. Wood ash is another good material for dust baths.

One of Sarah’s coops is inside the barn with roosting bars and more nesting boxes. The other coop is 10×20 foot with roosting bars along the whole length of the long wall. Sarah has made 8 nesting boxes with 5-gallon buckets on frames with branches used as roosts in front of the nesting boxes. Sarah uses turf nest pads inside the nesting boxes because they are so easy to clean and she also sprinkles a nesting box blend of herbs on the turf pads to keep the coop smelling great and keep the hens calm.

Sarah has 6 PVC pipe feeders inside this coop that she fills with Meyer Hatchery’s Non-GMO layer feed. She averages 20-30 eggs a day from her flock. Sarah says her favorite breed is Easter Eggers because they all look very different (she even has a snow white one) and they lay beautiful, unique eggs.

We hope you enjoyed this coop tour! If you have any questions about raising heritage turkeys or any of the products mentioned in this post, please contact us so we can assist you!