Turkey Talk 101: Raising Happy, Healthy Turkeys for Beginners-Part 2

Welcome to Poultry Keepers, the podcast where today we're talking turkeys. Whether you're new to raising turkeys or looking to improve your flock, we’ve got everything you need to know. From brooding delicate poults to choosing between heritage and commercial breeds, setting up the perfect turkey housing, feeding for optimal health, and even processing your own birds—we’ve got expert tips to help you raise happy, healthy turkeys. Stick around, because we’re about to talk turkey!

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Transcript

Turkey Talk 101: Raising Happy, Healthy Turkeys for Beginners-Part 2

[00:00:00] 

Alex: Welcome to Poultry Keepers Podcast, where we talk Poultry from Feathers to Function—and today It's part two of Turkey Talk 101! Whether you're new to raising turkeys or looking to improve your flock, we have everything you need to know. From brooding delicate poults to choosing between heritage and commercial breeds, setting up the perfect turkey housing, feeding for optimal health, and even processing your own birds, we have expert tips to help you raise healthy, thriving turkeys. Stick around, because we are about to talk turkey.  

Rip Stalvey: Mandelyn, one thing that may resonate with our viewers, what's the time difference, just the time spent in processing a chicken and the time spent in processing a turkey? 

Mandelyn Royal: I can do a chicken start to finish [00:01:00] in less than 10 minutes if I'm Cutting carefully and doing a little OCD method. Some people are a lot faster than I am because they're just ripping through as quick as they can.

But I'm looking at how pretty is this going to look in a shrimp bag? I better, like I, my OCD about it is I want everyone to be perfect. 

John Gunterman: Yeah. So you're also taking breeding notes too. And, 

Mandelyn Royal: yeah, and evaluating structure. And so I do that same thing with the turkeys. And sometimes we'll have one or two that we leave whole for the holiday, but then I'll part the rest of them.

And sometimes the muscles will still twitch when you're getting in there. And that's creepy but it can take me 20, 30 minutes to get a bird broken down if I'm doing it that way. And then if I'm agonizing over pin feathers, that'll drag it out too. 

John Gunterman: Just get a little handheld blowtorch. 

Mandelyn Royal: Yeah, or tweezers.

John Gunterman: Welder's [00:02:00] torch, or not a welder's torch, a plumber's torch. A little click. 

Mandelyn Royal: Yeah, it's a job. So we know that's what we do every November, the Sunday before Thanksgiving is we're processing turkeys.  

That way it's fresh. 

Rip Stalvey: John, we talked a little bit about flavoring turkeys, but from a chef's standpoint, what share, share your thoughts on turkey flavor and first of all, 

John Gunterman: I believe the turkey should be our national bird as was originally proposed cause it is an amazing protein source and responds well to a bunch of different cooking techniques because there is dark meat.

And light meat type qualities. We have fast twitch muscles, slow twitch muscles, and access to the range in rearing. Brings on such an amazing flavor profile. If you really want to experience what we call terroir in the culinary industry, get a [00:03:00] pasture raised turkey from a local farmer. And it, it tastes like the Norman Rockwell painting that you see everybody around the table with this giant.

Beautiful bird,

you're not going to get that depth of flavor in a commercial bird. They're okay. And they've, retained a lot of moisture through injection of brines and salts and flavors and adjuncts. But turkey is amazing. If you have somebody who has experience with it, especially if that person happens to be a firefighter try a deep fried turkey.

Wow. When I was in the Navy back in Millington, Tennessee, the base fire department actually fried turkeys for base residents out in a big parking lot. And you had your hour that you showed up with your turkey and they fried it for you because they got tired of responding to house fires. And it was a great fundraiser, but Wow.

The flavor is amazing. 

Mandelyn Royal: Smoked Turkey too is pretty good. 

John Gunterman: Smoked turkey's great. It [00:04:00] takes a lot of time. Oh gosh. I had when we moved to Memphis we had a uncle who was from Baton Rouge came up and taught me how to fry a Turkey. And then when he was done, blew my mind. He had this beautiful pork that he had all dry rubbed, and I thought we were gonna throw it in the smoker Uhuh.

He deep fried that after the Turkey came out. But that's a whole other 

Rip Stalvey: woo. John, what kind of herbs and spices go well with turkey meat? 

John Gunterman: I really like to stay in that indigenous profile of, we'd find out in the garden. A lot of the fragrant, strong, stronger spices. It really holds up to, I think rosemary here, we're going to do the Simon and Garfunkel song, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

Do not forget lots of garlic especially apples. Typically speaking, I am a very big in opposition to stuffing the cavity of any bird because it just brings a lot of cooking [00:05:00] challenges because usually by the time the internal gets warm enough, you've overcooked the external meat, but stuffing with quartered apples and garlic.

fresh onions throw some, your typical mirepoix. So you've got onions, celery, carrot that always needs to go in there. And in the fall when you're harvesting your fresh spices and herbs from your garden, it's all right there at the same time. And that's part of the magic is all these things come available at the same time 

Rip Stalvey: for you.

My daughter cooked one, one time and she said, do you have any oranges on the sour orange tree? And I said, yeah, she said bring me some. I said how many do you want? She said, some. I said, she's really good with definitions and amounts. So I took her a grocery bag full and she used sour oranges in her brine.

And also when she Cook the [00:06:00] bird. 

John Gunterman: Oh, I love to brine a bird. I will share one of my failures. Do not brine a turkey in red wine. It just, it turns the meat a really not pleasant color. Good. Yeah. 

Mandelyn Royal: I never would have thought to use that, but thanks for the heads up. 

John Gunterman: I've done white wines and they're great, but red just, it's not an appetizing color after it starts to infuse.

Rip Stalvey: I think my favorite. Brian, other than the one my daughter fixed with the sour oranges in them, it's just one that has apples. And some apple cider or apple juice in the brine mix, along with the other normal things you'd find in a brine. But that that's good. 

John Gunterman: And if you look at it, that, turkeys are being harvested about the same time that, apples are coming in from the orchard and, the carrots and all your root vegetables are coming in from the garden.

It's a late fall, early winter dish, and that's how we [00:07:00] celebrate it. So to me, it just falls into the natural rhythm of eating with the seasons and it just feels right to the body because you're taking in all this beautiful nutrition that you grew all summer in preparation for the winter. 

Mandelyn Royal: And that's why we opted for the heritage varieties, because not only can they breed naturally and we can raise them on our own, they follow our season perfectly.

Early spring hatch, let them grow all spring and summer. And then late fall, do the processing, thin out those extra boys and then start thinking about next season. 

John Gunterman: Yeah. If you look at it, most people are brooding and hatching turkeys at the same time, the natural or wild turkeys are out doing it.

Mandelyn Royal: They are seasonal layers and I don't think we covered that yet, but you can expect about 90 eggs a season from a domestic turkey. Some of them are going to go broody. Some of them aren't going to go broody. And it's those non broody ones that can hit the 90 egg [00:08:00] mark. And I personally don't let my girls brood because I don't want to.

hatch as many as I can, but they can be really good mothers too. If they have a mind too. 

Rip Stalvey: Now, how many eggs do you get from your Hollens on average? 

Mandelyn Royal: They start I have two already going. I started hatching turkeys a month ago because two of them started up already. The other two are molting right now.

So they'll start up later and I feel well expected to be still getting eggs in July and August. 

John Gunterman: All right. We're going to need to talk about.

Mandelyn Royal: Not if you're going to turn them loose into the wild to go get knocked up by some wild turkey. 

John Gunterman: Yeah, from what I've heard from Jeff, as long as I have a couple of females they will come home after. Going out for rum springer. Shall we say 

Mandelyn Royal: that's one way to salt say that springer for turkeys

You're gonna like them because they have a similar temperament to your [00:09:00] chickens based off that mail I had from you 

John Gunterman: I've raised turkeys Not in a commercial setting, pasture poultry pulling them in tractors through very large, spacious fields under electric fence, and for the most part, they stay in the fences, they're more suggestive to the turkeys and to keep the predators out, but generally speaking, once they figure out they can fly, if a predator comes near them, they're heading for the, higher trees.

They have a new 

Mandelyn Royal: life skill. 

John Gunterman: Yeah. Yeah. But during that time, it's pretty funny to watch them. Learn the processes of taking off and landing. 

Rip Stalvey: John what stocking density did y'all shoot for there at the college? If you had to take a guess at it. 

John Gunterman: Wow. It was not very much. I think we had this kind of wonderful, rotational paddock system.

So we'd have cows and sheeps and goats and poultry and swine. [00:10:00] Just in this rotation and the turkeys were cohabitated with the chickens, but we're talking, usually they have access to a half an acre at a time when we're moving them. And I would say. We're not looking at more than 20 turkeys in that half acre at any time.

They're 

John Gunterman: far outnumbered by chickens by maybe 10 to 1. 

Rip Stalvey: How often did you rotate them? 

John Gunterman: That, that was actually the subject of pasture management. And it was based entirely upon the amount of manure deposited by the species that was on it at the time. So smaller paddocks would be rotated faster, larger paddocks would be rotated slower.

And it was predicated by how often and how far you moved your overnight shelters. Cause they were smart enough to go back inside at night. Once they learned that routine, they learned it from the chickens. They'd go inside. We'd close the door, flip the latch and see you in the morning. But in the [00:11:00] morning, they were the first ones piled against the door, waiting to get out.

Rip Stalvey: Madeline, let's I'd like to get your experiences on predator issues with turkeys. Have you found any one critter that's more prone to cause you problems than another with turkeys that you might not see with chickens? 

Mandelyn Royal: No. So I do keep mine penned and then we have a separate perimeter fence. So nothing has come for them, but they are my first alert alarm system.

They will alert to something flying in the sky that they see three neighbors away. And that alert system that they start with their little chirps and Their noises, my chickens have learned to respond and listen. So I haven't had any knock on wood problems because they're watching. 

Rip Stalvey: They are very alert birds, very [00:12:00] alert, and if you've got a flock of them out there feeding and they're all picking around, usually there's one of them.

They're standing upright and just watching. 

Mandelyn Royal: Yeah, they take turns. 

Rip Stalvey: Yeah. When I have 

Mandelyn Royal: them out in the orchard, they're taking turns. Three heads down, one head up. 

John Gunterman: Yep. Anybody who's spent time in a ground blind hunting wild turkeys knows how smart those birds are. Oh boy. But if there's something 

Mandelyn Royal: shiny in front of them, they're gonna want to come 

John Gunterman: up on it.

Their vision is amazingly Crisp and any, even a speck of red, one little red button on the back flap of your jeans. They're going to spot it a hundred yards away. I swear to you, 

Mandelyn Royal: and then they're going to come up and look at it, 

John Gunterman: but you're not going to get a good shot, which is funny because you could stand there out in the field all day long watching them.

But if you raise a broomstick, like it were a shotgun, they're gone. They know that gesture somehow, 

Mandelyn Royal: rip, you have to tell the story. 

Rip Stalvey: Oh yeah. We were talking about. [00:13:00] Wild turkeys before we went on air and John asked me if I had ever done anything with our turkey biologist and I said yeah, we were back then, we didn't have a very big, robust wild turkey population here in Florida like we do now.

And we would trap turkeys in one area using a cannon net, and if you don't know what that is, it's like a giant fish net laid out in a long row, and you attach basically mortar shells like they use for launching fireworks, and you tie one end of them to the, to a rope that's tied to the net, and so you touch it off and it goes up over the top of the turkeys.

And hopefully you get something in it. Not always, but hopefully you do. We decided it would be less stress on the birds if they just flew the turkeys up [00:14:00] there. And then we just dump them out of the airplane while the plane's flying over where we want to stock them. Sounds good. Then somebody said it might be a good idea if we tried that with something else first.

And so they came up with a bright idea, I'm not sure how they made this leap of the imagination, but turkeys and guineas, they got some guineas and put them in a box and we took them up in the airplane. And first one we pitched out and he just folded up his wings and just tumbled all the way to the ground and splat.

So we decided that we could fly them up there, but then we'd land and they could take them by truck to the relocation area. And one day I was flying with our pilot with a load of turkeys. We trapped them in our buckle and we're taking them up to the panhandle. And the motors on, or the engines on the plane started sputtering.

That's 

[00:15:00] scary. 

Rip Stalvey: It was very scary. Lance says, I don't think I like this. He's a pilot. I said what are we going to do? He said, just in case we crash. He said, If you pull up that rug back there in the back seat, there's a hole in the floor. I said, okay. He said, take those turkeys out one at a time and push them through the hole and maybe they'll.

So I climbed over in the back seat and I got to opening up a box of turkeys and I pulled back the carpet and I stuck it in the hole and out it went. That's saying. Just stretched out its wings and just flew, just glided all the way down to the ground. 

Mandelyn Royal: Like an eagle. 

Rip Stalvey: Yes sir, buddy. That's how we stalk turkeys after that.

We just fly them up there and pitch them out of the airplane and let the good times roll. So where the guineas fell 

Mandelyn Royal: like a bowling ball, the turkeys actually had some flight ability. 

Rip Stalvey: These are wild turkeys, so they know what this flying thing's all about. And they can fly fast. They can fly, they can take [00:16:00] off about a quail.

They can go at a pretty steep angle. I know one time when I was a kid, I was probably 12, 13 years old, and we had gone out hunting and I heard a turkey flush and yet I looked up and I said, Oh, Hey, he's coming right towards me. And then. And a few seconds, I thought he's coming right over me, like you shoot him.

So I did. And, I felt like Wiley the coyote, because when I shot that turkey, he just folded his wings up and he tumbled right down, hit me right square in the chest.

It's like catching a concrete block thrown down from about 60 feet up in the air. 

Mandelyn Royal: It might've been every bit of 30 pounds. 

Rip Stalvey: Yeah, he wasn't that big and I'm glad he wasn't because that one that big probably took me out. He was 22 pounds. 

John Gunterman: Yeah, that's got to hurt. 

Rip Stalvey: Yeah, he left a [00:17:00] mark. 

John Gunterman: Yeah, we don't call them thunder chickens for nothing.

Rip Stalvey: No. And 

John Gunterman: They do make a quite a noise when they fly and they move a lot of wind. I've had one fly pretty close over my head and I was like, wow, that was impressive.

So they can fly. Do be really careful. Don't let one come in contact with the front of a moving vehicle because they will, they can total a car. If they hit in the front, they'll definitely take out your grill, your radiator. They will come through a windshield. 

Rip Stalvey: Yeah, I've just started to say I've seen him come through the windshield.

John Gunterman: In a previous career, I did some crash investigation for a certain municipality and I've seen it. Strangely, a lot of Turkey collisions and they do a lot of damage. So they're not 

Mandelyn Royal: always smart enough to get the heck out of the way. 

John Gunterman: Other birds are late enough where they can use the car to slip stream up over where a Turkey can't do that.

They're just going to hit the windscreen. 

Rip Stalvey: Another problem with those windshields and John, you probably noticed this so many times [00:18:00] there at the proper angle to reflect the sky. Yeah. So they don't realize they're flying into something solid 

John Gunterman: or they're attracted by something shiny. So I'm at, you bring up a good point because I think about this, I drive a Jeep Wrangler, so I've got basically this giant flat reflector for a window.

And there's some images and we do have a ton of wild turkeys in our area. You can't go out for a drive without seeing them. 

Rip Stalvey: Like I said, here in Florida, they used to be. Exceedingly rare, but they're everywhere you go anymore. 

Mandelyn Royal: Ever since you guys started pitching them out of airplanes and repopulating.

John Gunterman: Which is great. The National Wild Turkey whole program to re populate the wild turkey. Has worked. And it's one of the great success stories in environmental conservation, I believe, where surprisingly it was the hunters funded most of it. 

Rip Stalvey: Yes. Oh, absolutely. It's [00:19:00] through the the sales of 

John Gunterman: licenses.

Rip Stalvey: I forget the name of it, but there's a special X, but it's a federal excise tax on guns and ammunition that pays for most all of the wildlife research. 

John Gunterman: Yes. 

Rip Stalvey: And there's one for fisheries. It's called the Dingle Jock Johnson act, but 

John Gunterman: These public that are purchased for, specifically for breeding these hatcheries and brooding facilities for these.

Are pretty important and we're, the, it's successful, but is there still any active breeding for the wild turkey population or are they considered fully restored and they're on their own now? 

Rip Stalvey: No we're not, we haven't been involved in breeding wild turkeys in years. All right.

They. When they started rebounding, they decided they'd spend their money on, I can't believe we did this bringing in exotic species, 

and 

Rip Stalvey: they tried red jungle fowls, and they released probably, they raised up [00:20:00] three or four hundred and released those things, and they lasted about three days when the coons and the possums and everything else found them.

John Gunterman: Natural selection is pretty unforgiving. 

Rip Stalvey: Yeah, but 

I would say. 

John Gunterman: Yeah let's go back to how smart these birds are. It's something that you brought up and I've seen pictures of this, especially on Frank Reese's website. Back in the 1800s, farmers actually driving a flock. 

Oh yeah. 

John Gunterman: To market, just driving a herd of cattle.

And it's amazing to see, and the whole time they're eating, they're growing, they're depositing the manure. So it's this mutual beneficial relationship for everybody along the trail. 

Rip Stalvey: It it's odd. And it's not something you would think they would do with birds is drive them. And normally when we would say drive today, we're thinking about putting them in the truck and drive them.

John Gunterman: Yeah, they walked with them. 

Rip Stalvey: They walked with 

John Gunterman: shepherds, with sheep. Yeah. 

Rip Stalvey: And it's amazing that [00:21:00] they could keep them all together because, turkeys are just so naturally inquisitive and they'll see something over there and say, Oh, I think I'll go over there and check that out. Or I'll see something over here and I go, Oh, I'll go check that out.

They are literally engaged in their environment. Yes. Yes. They don't miss anything. And they're so inquisitive. Sometimes it gets them in trouble. But they have some of the best personalities of any of the poultry, domestic poultry we have, I think 

John Gunterman: for sure.

All right. So I'm trying to go, yeah, we got feeding coop space. So we already talked about the fact that they're very big and we need to lower our purchase, but you also need to consider what you're using for perch material. Cause I do have larger feet and need a larger perch, not only to grip properly, but to support their weight.

Like a regular two by four is probably going to be sagging under a turkey or two after a few weeks. If you're 

Rip Stalvey: going to use a regular two [00:22:00] by four, you got to do some bracing up underneath them. But I like that width, that four inch width. And if you'll round over the turkey. Top two edges, the front edge and the back edge that will allow the birds to grip that more naturally.

Mandelyn Royal: We didn't do a rounded edge, but we definitely have supports every three foot. 

John Gunterman: I like to make a little T shape out of two, two by fours where they're joined. Yeah. Podcast, this is going to work. So we have the beam strength underneath of the. The straight edge two by four, and then the wide edge on top.

So it gives them a place to rest their feet properly. Cause I have found Turkey's feet are very sensitive to improper perches. 

Rip Stalvey: Yes,

I would agree with that. 

John Gunterman: And especially more sensitive to ammonia buildup in the bedding. You got to really be on top of your husbandry. 

Mandelyn Royal: Yeah, for sure. They're just sensitive all the way around. Knock on [00:23:00] wood, I've had a really long run of good luck. 

Rip Stalvey: Huh. Turkeys are a big investment, not only in time and money, but it pays off.

They're fun. They're just fun birds to have around the farm. I realized they take a lot of room and turkeys are not for everybody. I get that. But if you have the room and you have the space yeah, you'll, you're going to fall in love with them. I guarantee you. 

Mandelyn Royal: Yeah. If you don't, I was toying with the idea of parting ways so I can have their pen.

I can't do it. 

Rip Stalvey: I just started saying you'd miss them. 

Mandelyn Royal: You'd have to fall right back into it. 

Rip Stalvey: You'd have to maintain visiting privileges. If you sold them, 

Mandelyn Royal: but 

John Gunterman: you do have nice birds. I've seen them. They're beautiful. There's 

Mandelyn Royal: Hollins are the biggest domestic ones we've had without being double breasted.

Rip Stalvey: They 

Mandelyn Royal: stayed meaty for the duration of growth for the most part. [00:24:00] And I didn't do anything different, so I don't know what that difference is, but I did see variations between the different color possibilities. So however those genetics are lining up. 

Rip Stalvey: It's like most anything else, Madeline, it is genetics at work and we can influence that to a certain degree, but yeah, there's some definite difference, probably the smallest next to the Beltsville small white is the Royal Palm Turkey.

They're much smaller, more refined, almost wild turkey. 

John Gunterman: I wanted to ask for people who don't have a lot of infrastructure space and I'd really like to try a turkey, but. They're so big, how can somebody, you mentioned the two there. 

Rip Stalvey: I'd get if space was at a premium, I would go with the Beltsville small white, okay.

There's a midget 

Mandelyn Royal: white too. And I think they're supposed to be separate families. 

Rip Stalvey: They are separate birds, but it's hard to find true [00:25:00] midget whites. Most of the midget whites out there are really Beltsville small whites, and they're larger than the midget whites. So it takes a little shopping and getting to know your breeder to find out whether they really got true midget whites.

And midget whites are not a recognized variety. Small Beltsville birds are. 

Mandelyn Royal: There's only a couple that are APA recognized. It's Narragansett, Bourbon Red, White Holland, Beltsville, Black, Bronze. 

Rip Stalvey: No, Black Spanish, Bronze, Royal Palm, 

Mandelyn Royal: Beltsville, 

Rip Stalvey: small whites. There's not many.

There's not many. 

Mandelyn Royal: No, I will say that if you do want to go to shows and you want an easier ribbon. Do it with a turkey. There's never that many turkeys. You can walk right on in and win more often than not. 

Rip Stalvey: See, and the one exception, with that caveat, the one exception is the Ohio National. They [00:26:00] have a lot of turkeys there.

Mandelyn Royal: Just a row and a half. 

Rip Stalvey: That's a lot of turkeys. Yeah. 

Mandelyn Royal: And there was someone there the last trip to Ohio. They walked that turkey from one building. They're each in a train all the way to champion row. Yeah. Yeah. That's the way 

Rip Stalvey: the 4 H kids show them. They don't try to carry them up there. The birds are too big.

So they train them to walk. It's like walking a pig. They got that little stick out there and away they go. 

Mandelyn Royal: One thing I appreciate about turkeys is they're not spooky. They're not flighty in that spooky sense. 

Rip Stalvey: No, they can be if you're not. Raising them right, but usually they're not. You're right. 

John Gunterman: Yeah, for a homesteader it's really an ideal bird.

Rip Stalvey: Like I said, if you've got the room and you've got the space, the room and the time and the money to invest in turkeys, give them a try. You're going to be glad you did. 

Yeah. 

Rip Stalvey: Folks, that's really all I got for today. I [00:27:00] don't do you two have anything else you want to add for the good of the cause?

Mandelyn Royal: Just that I love turkeys. 

Rip Stalvey: Folks, as always, we appreciate you joining us and listening to our podcast. We've had a lot of fun sharing with you folks, as we always do. 

Alex: Before we go, if you know someone that would enjoy listening to the Poultry Keepers Podcast we would apreciate you letting them know about us.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast. Join us next week as we begin a series many of you have been asking for. Genetics!

Many backyard poultry keepers assume genetics only matters to breeders and show competitors, but in reality, understanding basic genetics can make a huge difference in flock quality. How can learning just a little bit about genetics help even the casual poultry keeper? Listen in next week as we dig in to some basic genetic concepts that can help all poultry keepers. Thanks for listening, we'll see you nex [00:28:00] week!