Brooder Houses for Turkeys

June is National Turkey Lover’s Month (of course!) so we’ll be spending a bit of time this month talking about how farmers raise turkeys.

I had the chance to visit my friend Katie’s turkey farm in Iowa to see first-hand how they take care of their birds. I had not spent any time on a turkey farm before, so it was definitely a fun and interesting experience for me!

Katie and her husband Bart raise male turkeys (toms). They get them just after they hatch, at one day old. They raise their toms until they are around 19-1/2 weeks old, and have grown to about 43 pounds! It’s a combination of good breeding and good nutrition that helps these birds grow to that size in less than 20 weeks.

Here are some of their turkeys the first day they came to the farm. They get 20,000 turkeys in each flock. All the birds are kept in one barn, the brooder barn, that is 60 feet wide by 352 feet long (an NFL football field is 160 feet wide by 360 feet long, including the endzones).

(Photo courtesy of Katie Olthoff, On the Banks of Squaw Creek.)

Before the turkeys get to Katie and Bart’s farm, they are separated by gender (so Katie and Bart only get the male turkeys), vaccinated for some common turkey diseases, and get a spray-on probiotic to help with their digestion. This probiotic is bright pink, and some of the turkeys in these photos still have traces of that probiotic on their feathers.

(Photo courtesy of Katie Olthoff, On the Banks of Squaw Creek.)

I was at the farm when these baby turkeys (poults) were 10 days old.

The poults are separated into smaller groups by these cardboard rings. This helps in three ways. First, this makes sure all the turkeys always have easy access to food (the red and green containers in the middle of the enclosure) and water (the green and white containers on the left and right of the enclosure).

Here’s some of the kiddos having a drink from their automatic waterers.

Second, it keeps the poults close to their heat sources. Baby turkeys (like all other baby animals) need to be kept extra warm. In turkey barns, this is done with brooder stoves and controlled ventilation. The cardboard rings are centered underneath the brooder stoves (they hang from the ceiling). The turkeys have plenty of room to gather under the stoves if they are chilly, or to move away from the stoves if they are warm enough.

Third, it keeps the turkeys from getting too crowded. Turkeys are curious animals, and will all “flock” to one side of the barn to see what is going on. (See how they are all coming towards me, but have plenty of empty space at the back of their enclosure?) These rings keep them separated into smaller groups so if they do all gather to one side, there is less risk of some of the babies accidentally getting crushed by their brothers.

As the turkeys get older (and bigger), Bart makes the cardboard rings bigger to give them extra space. Once the birds are big enough that they can jump out of the cardboard rings, the rings are taken out and the birds have free run of their huge barn. (He was getting ready to do just that the same week I was visiting.)

Here are some of the turkeys in one of the cardboard enclosures. Watch how most of the birds come towards me to see what is going on. There’s plenty of room for them to spread out when there’s nothing interesting happening. You can see some of the “escaped” turkeys outside the enclosure to the left. You can also see Bart walking across the barn in the back – that gives you some idea of the size of this barn! (If you are reading this post in your email or an RSS reader, you will need to click through to the website to see the videos.)

This video shows some of the turkeys in a larger cardboard enclosure. See how they all move together, sort of like fish schooling? You can hear two things in this video – the first is the noise the turkeys make, and the second is the ventilation fans running in the background. Good ventilation is very important to keep fresh air coming into the barn.

But don’t worry, even if they do jump out of their cardboard temporary houses, there is still plenty of food and water for them outside.

How are you going to celebrate National Turkey Lover’s Month? What questions do you have about turkeys? Send me your questions and I’ll answer them during our turkey extravaganza this month!

In the meantime, be sure to visit the National Turkey Federation for more turkey facts, trivia, and recipes!

For more turkey information, check out these articles:

• Brooder Houses for Turkeys
• Turkeys in the Finisher Barn
• Grown-Up Turkeys
• Feeding Turkeys
• Ventilation in Turkey Barns
• Cleaning Turkey Barns