Keeping those turkeys warm in the wintertime

 The farm after a typical winter snowfall.

We live in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains in northwest Washington state. At our elevation of about 1000', we typically get a fair amount of snow between November and February. An average winter would include a lot of nights with temperatures in the 20s, some nights in the teens and often a week or so in single digits in December. We have been raising free-range chickens here since 2007, and turkeys and ducks since 2008.

We are also off the grid, so we don't use things like heat lamps in the coops. In fact, none of our coops are heated or insulated. So how do we keep our birds warm and comfortable during freezing weather?

One important consideration is breed selection. Some turkeys (as well as other poultry) are more cold-hardy than others. If you live in an area with harsh winters, do try to find a breed known to be cold-hardy. It's also a good idea to talk to others in the area who have some experience raising turkeys, and get their advice.

Old Tom, the patriarch of our Midget White turkey flock.

With chickens, usually a main concern is frostbitten combs. I wondered myself, with their bare heads and large wattles, about how our Midget White turkeys would manage when we had days with the temperature staying below freezing. At the time I could not find anything in books or blogs about this, so we just had to learn from experience. Turns out, the turkeys were just fine. We didn't do anything special to help prevent frostbite. However, there are a few tips I can give you that have proven consistently useful.

First, turkeys, when given the choice, will opt to spend the night roosting outdoors, usually in a tree. Unlike our chickens, they don't seem to mind being out in the rain or snow; the toms especially seem disinclined to get out of the weather. The first couple of years we had turkeys, we were chasing them out of the trees every night. At this point, almost all the turkeys we have were hatched on our farm, by broody hens, so they learned from their mamas to go into a coop to roost at night. This not only keeps them out of the bad weather, it also helps minimize predator problems.

The important thing about turkeys roosting in a coop is to make sure the roosts are big enough. Even smallish turkeys like the Midget White have large feet. Like chickens, when turkeys roost, they settle down on their feet and their feathers keep their feet warm. It's critical to use a roost large enough so their toes can't go all the way around it; otherwise the tips of their toes won't be covered by the feathers, so they are vulnerable to frostbite.

What's worked well for us is to use cedar 2x4s for roosts. If you have another kind of heritage turkey (most of which are larger than the Midget White) you may need to try something even larger. We turn the 2x4s so the wide side is turned up. This seems to be just fine for all ages of turkeys. Our turkey roosts are about 6 feet long; depending on the size of your turkeys, if you use roosts longer than this, they may need extra support in the middle.

Another thing we do in cold weather is to bump up the birds' carbohydrate intake. The easiest way we've found to do this is to feed out some cracked corn an hour or two before they go into their coops for the night. This gives them a carbo boost to help regulate their body heat during the long cold winter night.

Turkey footprints in the snow. I used to worry about their feet 

getting cold, but snow and ice don't seem to bother them much.

One other bit of advice I'd like to share: In the winter it's even more important to keep up with cleaning your coops out regularly. The birds are spending more time in those coops than they do outdoors when the days are short, and most of their poop is in there with them. Birds are quite vulnerable to respiratory problems, so please keep those coops clean and dry.

This is also a good time to make sure that there is adequate ventilation in your coops. It's easy to think that your birds will be warmer and more comfortable if you close up the windows, but air circulation is critical. I promise, it won't hurt your birds.

To sum up: Select cold-hardy breeds if you live where winters are cold. Make sure your roosts are large and sturdy enough for your turkeys. Help keep them warm at night with extra carbohydrate before you tuck them in. Keep those coops clean, dry, and well-ventilated. Your turkeys –and other poultry-- will be happier and healthier.

I'm always interested in hearing about your experiences, especially in different parts of the country. If you raise turkeys, let me know what you do to get them through the winter.

Just when we thought it was safe to go into the turkey coop...

 TJ, the broody Midget White tom turkey.

I really thought I'd seen everything. With the advent of Old Tom's shoe fetish (there's really no other word for it) a few years ago, it never occurred to me that things could get any weirder in the poultry world up here.

We've seen tiny Nankin bantam roosters attempting to mate with the much larger New Hampshire hens. A Blue Swedish duck who innocently incubated two chicken eggs along with her own clutch of eggs, only to be somewhat bewildered when the chicks hatched a week before her ducklings. Oh and there was the New Hampshire rooster who shamelessly mounted a Khaki Campbell duck right in front of us. And those are just the first ones that come to mind.

So the other day David came in and reported that TJ, the year-old son of Old Tom (who's 6 years old now), was sitting on some chicken eggs that were laid in a corner of the turkey coop. Not only was he sitting on them (TJ, I mean, not David), but he apparently fluffed up indignantly and actually hissed at David when he came near the nest.

This is going to be a short blog post. I mean, what the heck is there to say about this?

I confirmed with David that TJ was, in fact, on the nest that very moment, so I did the only thing possible. Got my camera and went to see for myself. I have to admit that I wasn't all that surprised. I won't be surprised, either, if Old Tom feels a bit jealous of the attention TJ is getting. Dancing on David's shoes and getting all, ahem, worked up in the process might be funny to look at, but we see that practically every day. A broody tom turkey, now that's something new and different!

What did surprise me was that I didn't have dreams last night of TJ swimming on the Big Pond with his little brood of ducklings. But then, there's still time.

If you missed the Mother Earth News Fair in PA...

...well, let me tell you, you really did miss out. I hear there were over 15,000 visitors over the three days of the Fair, and the energy and atmosphere were consistently positive. If I'd been swift enough to bring a camera, you'd see one picture after another of smiling faces, families having fun with each other, and altogether a sense of eagerness to learn and connect with other people aiming to live life more sustainably and meaningfully.

As for me, I had a terrific time. The Seven Springs Mountain Resort is quite an amazing place: 5,000 acres of ski slopes, golf courses, tennis courts, indoor swimming pool, even an indoor arcade. I stayed in a large and beautiful condo with three other women: my friend Jeannette Beranger from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, her colleague Alison Martin, and Pat Foreman, author of Chicken Tractor and City Chicks, among other books. It was lovely seeing Jeannette again, and getting to know Alison and Pat a little was wonderful. I learned a lot just hanging out with these three women, and they all have been generous in their encouragement of my writing projects and ambitions.

My two presentations, one on raising turkeys and the other on raising ducks, went quite well. Considering it was raining occasionally on Saturday afternoon, I was surprised at the crowd that showed up to hear about turkeys. I really enjoy the interaction with the audience; in each of the three times I've done presentations at the Fair, I've learned something new. Even if you raise the same kind of birds that I do, something about your situation or experience will be different from mine, and this is where I think events such as the Mother Earth News Fair are so valuable. There are more and more people who, for various reasons, wish to start taking control of their own food supply, and no matter how many books or Internet pages you read, it's always helpful to connect with someone with  real-life experience. (This, by the way, is just as true for me as for anyone who attended my presentations.)

Thanks to James Duft and those of you at Mother Earth News whose names I don't know, for offering me this opportunity once again. Your generosity in arranging for housing, as well as a ride to and from the airport, is truly appreciated. Thanks also to those of you who attended one or both of my presentations; I loved having the opportunity to share and learn with you.

Finally, turkey eggs are being incubated; hooray for surrogate moms!

Cochin banty hen with 1-day-old Midget White turk.

This year, for some reason our Midget White turkeys started laying eggs about a month later than usual, around mid-March. After losing two of our four breeding hens recently, we have been keeping close tabs on the surviving two and collecting their eggs. At this point, we have three broody chickens sitting on turkey eggs, and we just put one of the turkey hens on a clutch. We're still getting an egg almost every day from the remaining turkey hen, so we will save them up for a few days and then put her in a turkey brooder with her own clutch.

One of the many things we've learned in the course of breeding birds is that hatching eggs are dormant for about 6 days. This allows the hen to accumulate a clutch of eggs (since she doesn't lay more than one egg per day) before the actual incubation begins. Without this period of dormancy, the eggs would all hatch on different days. Our Midget White hens typically incubate between 12 and 18 eggs at a time, so obviously having them all hatch more or less on the same day is a good thing! There are sometimes late arrivals among the hatchlings, which may get left behind if the hen and other babies have already left the nest.

Cochin banty hen with Midget White turks.

One of our broody hens is a Cochin banty. The poor thing, all she wants to do in life is incubate eggs and raise babies. Because of her banty-esque size, she can only comfortably incubate 4 or 5 turkey eggs at a time, but I feel sorry for her when she's this broody, so I have her sitting on 4 of them. She successfully hatched and raised baby turks last year, too (see photo above).

Of course, in years when we've had more Midget White hens than we do right now, they have done a great job. They readily go broody, lay and incubate plenty of eggs, and are attentive and protective mothers.

 Midget White hen with some of her brood. 

Speaking of surrogate mothers, we have discovered that one of the hazards of letting all the birds free-range is that they sometimes lay eggs in some other bird's nest. Usually, when a hen is incubating a clutch of eggs, she hops off the nest for a few minutes every day, at least long enough to eat and drink something. (They also like to poop away from the nest.) Last year a Blue Swedish duck hatched 2 chicks; this was a little tricky because she was also incubating duck eggs, which incubate for 28 days (chicken eggs incubate for only 21). Fortunately, there was a broody hen available who happily adopted the orphans. Naturally, we called them Donald and Daisy.

Then there was the time when a Midget White turkey hatched and raised a chicken...

Midget White turkey with Barred Rock pullet she hatched and raised.

It's not always easy managing all these birds during breeding season, but we're learning every year and getting better at it. It's nice to know that so many of the hens don't mind sharing the mothering duties; it makes our lives easier, and sure makes for some interesting photos!

Two turkey hens lost to a cougar this week

Just a brief digression from my summary of the Premises of Pot Pies and Egg Money: This week we lost two of our four Midget White turkey hens to a cougar. The turkeys like to go a little ways out of the yard and lay their eggs in the thick stand of salal near the edge of the woods. For the past two years, they've always laid their eggs in one of two spots; this, along with their bright white coloring, made it easy to find them, and their eggs.

This year, things have changed. First, the hens have found three entirely new places to make their nests. We've finally located all of them, after literally hours of looking, but unfortunately in two cases, a cougar found the nests before we did. The pile of white feathers in the nest and the trail of more feathers leading to the edge of the canyon and down the steep slope make it clear what happened. (Although this is a smaller-sized turkey, even the hens are too large to be bothered by bobcats; even young cougars are much larger than bobcats.)

As distressing as it is to lose the hens, what added insult to injury was finding the remains of broken turkey eggs in the nests. We were hoping to find intact eggs that could be hatched under a broody hen . We've been keeping a close eye on the remaining hens, and collecting their eggs as quickly as possible. We've got only 7 so far. I'm going to set up one of the broody coops this afternoon and relocate a very broody chicken there to incubate the turkey eggs. The Midget White hens are very good broodies and mothers; however, since we only have two left, we want them to keep laying eggs for as long as possible (they quit laying once they go broody), so we'll use chickens to hatch the turkey eggs for now.

It's a bit disconcerting to think that an animal the size of a cougar (males can weigh up to 275 lbs) is coming so close during the day; the nests are all within less than 100 feet of the house. We've put up some temporary fencing in the area where the turkeys are nesting, and all has been quiet for the past couple of days. At this point, we're not even thinking about Thanksgiving; we're concerned about replenishing our breeding flock.