Homestead Turkey Production

Image Gallery This sun porch can be built to accommodate any number of turkeys. Both feeder and waterer are easily filled from outside the pen; the slat floor facilitates cleaning. A small door is placed where turkeys can be readily caught with a leg wire.

Advances made by the veterinary profession in recent years have completely changed the entire picture of turkey production. As short a time as 15 years ago, the rearing of turkeys was considered one of the most hazardous of agricultural pursuits and many experienced turkey breeders lost upwards of 75% of their entire flocks to disease in a single year. Here then certainly was no place for the amateur, for if the experienced, full-time farmer was often unsuccessful with turkeys, what chance did the average country dweller have with his small flock?

Today, thanks to unrelenting research conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture, various State Experiment Stations and some commercial breeders, many of the hazards of turkey production have been eliminated and there is now no reason why the amateur, using reasonable intelligence and possessing the willingness to follow simple directions cannot produce at least enough turkeys for his own table, at small expense and with low death loss.

Mr. Harvey Griffin, owner of the Wagonwheel Ranch of California, and one of the foremost breeders of Broad-Breasted Bronze turkeys states that at least half of his expense in raising turkeys is labor costs and he further contends that if the amateur is willing to do his own work, he may produce turkeys considerably cheaper than can the commercial breeder. In addition, turkeys are handsome birds, and even though they are not as easy to grow as are chickens, they do not require expensive housing facilities and grow from infancy to maturity in less than six months.