bee_pipes
05-28-2007, 09:29 AM
These things always seem to take longer than you think.
We picked up 4 turkey poults and a banty playmate. The intention was to add turkey to our diet - two for the freezer and a breeding pair. The banty goads the poults into eating and drinking, plays with them and keeps them moving around.
(firefox/mozilla users right-click and view image for larger picture)
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/poultsandbanti.jpg
For the last month, off and on, my wife and I have been building a turkey hootch - a porch with shanty. There was a detour building a brooder box - the cardboard box got too small after two weeks. We took a sheet of plywood and a few 2x4's to put this together. After about a week of being annoyed with the thing, we picked up a few more 2x4's and casters to add legs and wheels to it.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/brooderbox.jpg
The time was well spent. We have an incubator with 32 eggs, mixed orpington and guinea.
The hootch was made mostly from scrap wood. We pickled up a few more 2x4's to frame the doors, and a neighbor gave us some old sweetgum logs that we milled into boards.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootchstructure.jpg
The floor of the porch was covered with 1/2 inch hardware cloth, the sides with one inch chicken wire.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootch13.jpg
As happens with these projects, I start getting carried away. The shanty has two solid doors, the porch has two wire doors. Could have gotten by with less doors, but I wanted to be able to reach every corner of the structure from doorways and not have to climb into it. The roof of the shanty end was made from scrap metal roofing and screws left from the last roofing project. 1/4" hardware cloth (left from the chicken house) was used to cover the windows. Flitches from the sawmill will make window frames for attaching storm windows like those on the chicken house - made from old stickers. The shanty has three windows, a front and rear door.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootch31.jpg
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootch32.jpg
We finally got the last screw driven into the last door hinge on Sunday morning. The turkeys and banty playmate were moved out into the hootch at just about one month old.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootch33.jpg
The only thing left is to hang scraps of chicken wire around the hootch as a skirt, to keep other poultry and the dogs out of the droppings that fall through the wire. Will rake them periodically to spice up the compost pile.
From talking to people here, I don't expect the turkeys to make great use of this structure, but it will serve until they are big enough to be turned loose to graze and roam with the rest of the poultry. After the turkeys vacate for sleeping areas they prefer, it will make a nice starter for birds after brooding.
Regards,
Pat
We picked up 4 turkey poults and a banty playmate. The intention was to add turkey to our diet - two for the freezer and a breeding pair. The banty goads the poults into eating and drinking, plays with them and keeps them moving around.
(firefox/mozilla users right-click and view image for larger picture)
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/poultsandbanti.jpg
For the last month, off and on, my wife and I have been building a turkey hootch - a porch with shanty. There was a detour building a brooder box - the cardboard box got too small after two weeks. We took a sheet of plywood and a few 2x4's to put this together. After about a week of being annoyed with the thing, we picked up a few more 2x4's and casters to add legs and wheels to it.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/brooderbox.jpg
The time was well spent. We have an incubator with 32 eggs, mixed orpington and guinea.
The hootch was made mostly from scrap wood. We pickled up a few more 2x4's to frame the doors, and a neighbor gave us some old sweetgum logs that we milled into boards.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootchstructure.jpg
The floor of the porch was covered with 1/2 inch hardware cloth, the sides with one inch chicken wire.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootch13.jpg
As happens with these projects, I start getting carried away. The shanty has two solid doors, the porch has two wire doors. Could have gotten by with less doors, but I wanted to be able to reach every corner of the structure from doorways and not have to climb into it. The roof of the shanty end was made from scrap metal roofing and screws left from the last roofing project. 1/4" hardware cloth (left from the chicken house) was used to cover the windows. Flitches from the sawmill will make window frames for attaching storm windows like those on the chicken house - made from old stickers. The shanty has three windows, a front and rear door.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootch31.jpg
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootch32.jpg
We finally got the last screw driven into the last door hinge on Sunday morning. The turkeys and banty playmate were moved out into the hootch at just about one month old.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/turkeyhootch33.jpg
The only thing left is to hang scraps of chicken wire around the hootch as a skirt, to keep other poultry and the dogs out of the droppings that fall through the wire. Will rake them periodically to spice up the compost pile.
From talking to people here, I don't expect the turkeys to make great use of this structure, but it will serve until they are big enough to be turned loose to graze and roam with the rest of the poultry. After the turkeys vacate for sleeping areas they prefer, it will make a nice starter for birds after brooding.
Regards,
Pat