Talkin' Turkey

Back in late July we purchased 30 turkey poults.  Turkeys being turkeys, we've lost about half of them....but the other half are doing very well.  We split the remaining poults into 2 separate pens, one of which is a hoop house that we move every couple of days to give them fresh grass.

The other group has been in a make-shift pen.  It has worked out well until recently when we've gotten a lot of rain...

Yep, the pen is staying wet and muddy......not good.

Since the pig pen is now vacant, we decided to move them out there.  The ground in the pig pen is rocky and sandy, so even if we get rain, it runs off fairly quickly.

Not to mention they will have a lot more room...

So this morning we made the move.  There are 9 birds in this group and barring any problems, this is where they will reside until they head for freezer camp.

Hopefully over the next few days they will dry off and groom the mud out of their feathers.  They not only got a new pen, but I'm changing their feed to a finishing diet.  They have been raised on an unmedicated layer crumble for the past month, and I will be switching them to a grain mixture.  We are trying to eliminate corn from all of our feed mixtures because of the high cost of non-GMO corn.  The finishing mix will be:

1 part wheat

1 part milo

1 part crimped oats

1/2 part black oil sunflower seeds

I'll also add crushed boiled eggs and meat scraps for protein.  

I sure am looking forward to Thanksgiving!