I just got 5 eastern wild turkey poults, I never raised turkeys before, any tips will help they are 1 day old today, At what age can you decifer if there male or female. Any info would be helpful of those who raise these birds. Thanks Brian
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make sure of your local state laws reguarding possessing them. secondly as far as raising them.the key to most young birds is to get them to start eating.alot of the times this is difficult and will result in them living about two or three days and then dieing.i have raised many types of wild birds for many years and the best way to get them to start eating is to provide LIVE food.i use a bug zapper and hang a bucket underneath it. about twice a night i will dump the bugs collected into a shallow food dish that contains chick starter.dump the bugs directly on the starter.them movement will trigger them to feed.they are predisposed to eat stuff that moves not a piece of bread,chicken feed or whatever folks seem to want to throw at them.some feed mfg. make a turkey feed and starter. i would check with your local feed store for that.if you dont want to go with the bug zapper you can order meal worms from grubco.they have a variety of sizes and they are stored in the refridgerator to keep them from maturing.good luck.
Turkeys are usually very willing to eat. To get them started, offer them some finely chopped green leaves like dandelions or spinach. For their main food source just use non-medicated gamebird starter. I don't use turkey starter because it is almost always made for broad-breasted varieties so it's too low in protein, plus it's generally medicated.
They need to be kept warm a lot longer than chickens. As a rule of thumb, don't totally remove their heat source until they develop naked pinkish heads.
You have about 24-36 hours to handle them and talk to them right after they hatch. If you do this they will be a lot calmer as adults. They probably won't become truly tame, but they will be tolerable. If you miss this window of opportunity they will probably be very skittish and hard to deal with for their entire lives.
That's all I can think of right now.
I don't know of any way to sex them before they are about 3 months old or so. By that time the jakes will be noticeably larger. Later on you may find that both sexes strut, but the hens have tiny snoods that don't extend past the tip of their beaks.
my turkeys wont eat.. we got them yesterday and still nothing, i take them outside and the peck at the grass. Is that enough.. if anyone knows anything more.. please get back to me
Tony