hey all, i am contemplating between raising 25 heritage breed turkeys on free range next year or 100 cornish roasters on range. I am doing this as a school project on economy. what do you think would promise a larger income? i did the math, figuring on selling the turkeys for $3.50/lb and the roasters for $3.00/lb. The turkeys i believe have more potential of a better profit. But i know that any turkey deaths i have with drastically offset my profit, whereas chicken losses can be more or less, unnoticed by my net profit. i know that turkeys require a lot of work and move through pastures quite quickly, i have no experience with broilers. does anyone know how much feed it takes to raise a broiler to 9 weeks or a cornish hen to 6 weeks as a fryer? i understand that on average between toms and hens, a turkey consumes about 100 lbs of feed until maturity, i also have read that birds provided with good range(mine is clover, chickory, alfalfa, and brassica) will supplement food intake with up to 30% greens. anymore statisics relating to these subjects would be helpful. has anybody tried raising both? what would you reccomend? also, when hatcheries refer to fryer chickens, what is that, a 3-4 lb bird that you would not cook whole?
meat birds facts
Are you raising them in separate pens i bought my husband 3 baby turkeys 2 years ago and the 2 hens got blackhead and died.
They told me it was from them eating under my chicken cages and that it was the poop that caused the blackhead.
The cock bird lived and was only a little sick.
I'd go with the chickens. I had heratage turkeys and they were frankly , a pain in the neck. They fly. This makes them more difficult to contain and they are slow to mature. We now raise bronze and white broad breasted. They are much like the cornish crosses, big, dumb, lazy and easy to contain with a 5 foot fence. As long as there is food, they are happy. You can entertain them easily with a feeder like they use for wild turkeys and deer. It scatters a little corn or grain at set intervals many times a day. I move it around the pasture so they don't dig too deep a hole looking for corn. The rest of the time they pick around for bugs, eat grass and wait for someone to fill the feed pans. They do like nice sunny spots for dust baths and sunning them selves and will make a pretty big wallow.
I got my broilers this year from Randal Burkley. I never lost any and did not have any leg problems. They grew quickly and plucked beautifully. I grow mine till about 10 to 12 weeks and get a nice tender bird. My turkeys go till about 20 to 25 weeks and we get an average of hens at 20 lbs and toms at 28 to 45 lbs.
I worked it out and without any scientific calculations, I figure I get a bit more meat from the turkeys, but not by much.
harmony, i would only be raising the turkeys or the broilers, not both. i Already have a flock of layers, but they would be about 3 acres away from the turkeys. i have made that mistake as well though, dissapointing.
jylgaskin, I would be raising them in a 15x20ft portable hoophouse, so i dont know if flying would matter to me. One thing that attracted me to the heritage breeds is that they are heartier to cold weather and such, most of them I will kill, but I would like to save some for rebreeding purposes. In michigan, im thinking the winter thing would be kind of tough for a commercial breed to survive, not to mention they cant reproduce naturally. As you can see im kinda weighing my options here as I type. I have heard so many different opinions on the heritage turkeys, some people like them a lot, and some people just dont. Would heritage turkeys be better at foraging than commercial?
ok, thanks for that information, i have never heard of randal berkely, do they have a website? Did you raise turkeys or broilers for profit or for home consumption?
I raise my birds for home consumption and sell a few to friends. I do feel that the heratige breeds are hardier and yes, do reproduce naturally. If they are in a hoop house, escaping wouldn't be a problem, but if you have more than 6 in that hoop house , it won't be pasture past a week. I put my remaining 9 in the garden to clean it up last week. As of today, there is nothing left but maragolds and tomato plants (not a single tomato though). They even dug up the few carrots left and pulled down the pole bean plants. I got rid of my Narragansetts because I couldn't keep them out of the garden and they dug holes EVERYWERE. Not to mention the POOP! They slept on my clothesline post and when the snow melted, there was a three foot high pile of poop under each one. To top it all off, the tom started chasing cars. Though the neighbors thought it was hysterical, it was the last straw for me.
I don't want to discourage you. The heritage breeds are smart, beautiful, and easy to grow. I just like the idea of a 5 month investment of time for about 300 pounds of meat.
I have raised my chickens and turkeys together for years, I guess I've just been lucky and never had any disease problems
randallburkey.com I got wonderful birds from them.