mating ratio

[peacockfarmer1]

what would be a good male to female ratio for good fertility in turkeys
how many hens would be max for a tom

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

you can run 6-8 easily on turkeys with no problem. They breed like crazy, but it only takes one time to fertilize 10-12 eggs in a hen as they can store sperm and use it as needed. I run 2 toms and 12-15 hens in all my pens and have never had fertility issues, usually if it's a good egg it hatches.

 

[peacockfarmer1]

thanks also when is a turkey mature and ready the mate and lay?

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

Quote:
the spring following their hatch, 9 months to 1 year of age basically, fall hatches may not lay til the following spring though, due to them being so young when spring comes around, but generally their following first spring.

 

[MovieFanz]

Quote:
This was posted before from the turkey breeding manual from ALBC web site. http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/MasterBreeder/turkeys_combined.pdf


Large type turkeys – 15 hens to 1 tom
Standard-size turkeys – 18 hens to 1 tom
Small type turkeys – 20 hens to 1 tom


What I do is alternate toms in my breeding pen so I can keep track of the bloodlines and know how my tom is producing.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

I keep one tom for every 5 hens.

Steve

 

[MovieFanz]

For those people that do not want the risk of the hens getting ripped up by the toms, keep in mind a hen does not have to be bred everyday. Hens can remain fertile up to 41 days from just one breeding from a fertile tom. After 14 days there is no drop in fertility. So you can safely take the Tom out of the breeding pen for 2 weeks after he has done the deed. A hen lays down for a tom because of a strong hormonal response. Multiple Toms will all try to mount the hen. All this interference will lower your fertility and abuse your hens. She does not ask for that or does she need that. Using a higher ratio of toms will lower your fertility, not improve it.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

I'm glad our turkeys don't read all these posts. Our tom to hen ratio has always been 5 to 1 and we get quite a few reports of very very good hatches from shipped eggs even. Our hatch rate from our own eggs is always high.

Steve

 

[MovieFanz]

Quote:
Have you ever tried less Toms? Do you have fertility problems that make you think you need that many Toms? Maybe to much inbreeding? How are you keeping from inbreeding with random breeding like that? There is way to many advantages to more hens per Tom.

For those that like to read about Hen to Tom ratio here is Turkey Management. Page 99.

http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=chla;cc=chla;idno=3317008;node=3317008:5;frm=frameset;view=image;seq=108;page=root;size=s

It says if you have a exceptional tom he can breed up to 50 hens.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Quote:
Have you ever tried less Toms? Do you have fertility problems that make you think you need that many Toms? Maybe to much inbreeding? How are you keeping from inbreeding with random breeding like that? There is way to many advantages to more hens per Tom.

For those that like to read about Hen to Tom ratio here is Turkey Management. Page 99.

http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=chla;cc=chla;idno=3317008;node=3317008:5;frm=frameset;view=image;seq=108;page=root;size=s

It says if you have a exceptional tom he can breed up to 50 hens.

I'm old fashioned and go with what works and has worked for quite a few years.

On the inbreeding issue i'm curious as to how you do it? if you only have 1 tom to 15 - 20 hens then you must have quite a few turkeys to keep genetic diversity. What are your methods?

Steve