Raised your own turkeys?

[Mr.]

So, after listening to the myriad of complaints/comments/general bullshittery from the family over Thanksgiving, I've decided I will raise turkeys for us for the holidays next year. I keep chickens now, and will likely be adding ducks and who the hell knows what else...goats? Perhaps.

Anyone raised their own turkeys for the holidays? If you have, which breed? I'm also curious as to how big you were able to to raise them. I will be doing much more research before sourcing my birds this spring, but figured it may be a fun point of discussion of anyone else out there is into raising the winged spawn of satan.

Cheers

[southernmom]

It's on my 'to do' list. Sorry I'm not more help, just adding moral support!

[Tex]

Hi Mr.
We raised some turkeys this year. We started out with five chicks, but a coon or fox got two of them. Over on my ranch thread I put up a few pics of the three that made it. By the good words we heard over Thanksgiving dinner, we will be raising turkeys every year for the holiday meals. The one we butchered the other day weighed over 25lbs dressed out and he almost didn't fit into the oven. I was going to keep feeding the other two right up till Christmas, but as big as the first one was, we will be butchering soon. Check out my ranch Around the Ranch thread and see what you think. Let us know if we can help you out.


Tex

[reddawnspokane]

Those are some big birds.

[W.Lynn]

I used to call my beloved offspring turkeys, and other things, but they seem to have turned out fairly human anyway.

[PLA]

I raised Bronze semi commercially for a few years

Our average was between 32-40 lbs dressed out, the local B&B loved them because they could cook 1 instead of 2. I loved them because I can cut steaks off them once roasted. They are too big to fry, but very moist with the fat content.

Keep a cover over them until they are fully feathered, and put a chicken in the turkey coop/pen because they are literally too stupid to eat without something showing them how. They will look up in the rain and drown. Stupid birds, just stupid.

I fed crumble, high protien the first 8 weeks, then added ground corn. By the time they were butcher weight, they were getting 50/50 corn crumble and loving it.

When you butcher, the heart was so surrounded with a 2 inch layer of fat I couldnt grab it to pull out of the carcass.

[W.Lynn]

There is no such thing as "too big to fry" - there's just the ones you do whole, and the ones you cut up like a giant chicken.

[Mr.]

Thanks, people, for the great advice and other words. Tex and PLA seem to have exactly the experience I was looking for. I've got 20 chickens as of now already--so I suppose having them hang around each other would be more than easy! I figured the multi-flock crumble I have would be sufficient feed, just didn't know if I needed to give them any special something to help grow. Sounds as though they will thrive easily on my organic feed I make for the chickens.

I plan to raise them from chicks--and I figure I would be raising three or four of them. How long do they take to feather out? My chicks last year were outside by I think five weeks old, so I am assuming I could do something similar with the turkeys as well.

Cheers!

[VINCENT]

I dont want to talk about this topic