PLEASE, share your turkey housing ideas with me!

[ninjapoodles]

We've built the outdoor enclosed yard for the turkeys, and are ready to get started on their housing. I'm having trouble finding any specific information pertaining to turkey housing. Do you build just like a chicken coop, only bigger? We're in Arkansas, and it's brutally hot and humid already, so we're more concerned about that than we are about winter.

Please, turkey-keepers: Share with me your coop layouts/nesting/roosting areas that you use with YOUR turkeys! Ours are Narragansetts.

Belinda

 

[justusnak]

We have 3 hens, and a tom. Our first turkey house we built last summer. It is 6x8 and has a 6 ft roof in the front, and a 5 1/2 ft roof in the back. There are 3 windows North,South, and West side....and the roos is in front of them.( running N and S) I just put garden netting over the top...useing a prop in the middle of the yard to hold it up high enough for me to walk into. We will be expanding the coop this summer....when we started with it, we had just one hen and a tom.
Here is ours, under construction last summer and finished.

The reason for the chicken wire front is because we built the coop onto it, and I can access the turkey coop from inside the chickens coop. The roost is about 4 ft from the ground....and they like to nest in the corner....on the floor.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Thanks for sharing that. Are there any considerations that would apply only to turkeys? Something that you don't have to do for chickens?

 

[lilchick]

i found that once the heavy toms matured it was difficult for them to fly up to roost.
so i build a platform low to floor for them to hop up onto and settle down on.
otherwise they will roost on the floor or try to stay outside!

 

[pdpatch]

Usually the the entrance for the turkeys is larger 12" x 12" for chicken, 14 x 14 for turkeys.

Roost usually start at 18" to 24 " off the floor. Exception being if you have any Big Breasted variety. Then something like 6 inches is better.

Nesting boxes for chickens are usually 12" x 12" for heritage turkeys 14" x 14" min.

Make sure you have plenty of shade at all time of the day.

They also have a higher floor space requirement per bird then chickens do, But I can't find it at the moment.