Cleaning Up on Turkeys

 Cleaning Up on Turkeys 

WHEN Mrs. Paul Engle, of Pulaski County, Indiana, decided to raise turkeys instead of chickens, she didn’t realize the “clean-up” she was going to make. “Everybody was raising chickens,” Mrs. Engle said, “but only a few were paying attention to turkeys. So I began with turkeys on a small scale. In 1933 we had a thousand turkeys which we sold at Christmas time at twenty cents a pound, and we were well satisfied with our profits.” As the average turkey ran to a little over ten pounds and her cost for each of the birds was about 50 cents, she had a profit of about $1,400 for that one season. The work connected with the care and raising of the turkey poults did not bother Mrs. Engle in the least. “Work,” she said, “is a tonic for anybody.” She converted the former chicken house on the farm into a large turkey house. It was a big job but proved worth the effort. As she places day-old poults in this turkey house, everything connected with it must be kept safe and sanitary. Before placing the baby poults in the old chicken house, the floor, which is cement, was scrubbed with lye water. Every piece of equipment was cleaned and scrubbed, and the house fumigated. A sun pen was built just outside this chicken house. The sun pen was a collapsible affair, arranged so that it could be quickly taken down, and put out of the way. It consisted of frames covered with wire, and cost but little to make. In good weather, the young poults were permitted to run in this sun pen. After the oats harvest was completed, the turkey poults were turned into a small oat field, which was used as a turkey range. The entire cost of rearranging the chicken house and building the turkey pen was less than $100. Mrs. Engle did not buy brooders and incubators for the turkey poults, but utilized the equipment on the premises which had been used for raising chickens. Sanitation, Mrs. Engle believes, is an all-important element in successful turkey raising. Too much care cannot be given the pens to keep them free from infectious diseases. Once a week she has clean straw spread on the floors of the turkey house after soiled bedding is removed. When anyone enters the turkey house where the young poults are kept, he must put on rubber boots that have been thoroughly disinfected just before entering. “We cannot be too careful about this,” Mrs. Engle explained. “Without such precaution, blackhead infection could be tracked in from the ground over which the chickens have run.” Although Mrs. Engle has increased the number of turkeys on the farm to about three thousand, the cost of raising each poult has steadily decreased until now it is close to 27 cents each. She emphasizes the fact that it is not the cost of feeding which checks profits, but careless handling. Careless handling causes the poults to die from disease and then the crop goes “into the red.” Day-old poults may be secured from one of the big poultry farms at very small cost. A small turkey flock does not require a big area for ranging, for as many as 100 birds may be brought to maturity on an average city lot. Such birds are carefully shipped either by parcel post or by express, and with ordinary care 90 per cent will mature for market, giving a high percentage of profit to the raiser.