FEEDING YOUNG TURKEYS. 



547 



to encourage insects; still we have seen flocks of 

 young birds obviously pining from this cause. 

 Such should always be caught and examined, 

 and if necessary energetically treated, either by 

 using volatile insecticide in a large box, or by 

 powdered sulphur or insect powder. One great 

 advantage of the more open-air system is that it 

 keeps the poults more free from this danger. 



Another point to be borne in mind is that 

 young turkeys, as indeed old ones also, specially 

 require abundance of grit. Plenty of gravel or 

 other grit should always be provided near their 

 coop or shed, and it will be seen that they take 

 a rather surprising quantity of it. Grit should 

 also be well scattered over the grass near the 

 coop. Some believe that coarsely crushed 

 charcoal amongst the grit is an advantage : we 

 can testify to its being eaten, at all events. With 

 plenty of grit, and very sparing but frequent 

 feeding upon good food, on clean ground, most 

 of the supposed difficulties of rearing young 

 turkeys will be found to disappear, and they will 

 make even larger frames than if fed more freely. 

 This kind of feeding is the more necessary 

 because they are eager feeders, and if allowed to 

 eat to repletion, suffer as above indicated. 



Some American breeders mi.x a portion of 

 red pepper in the food of the young birds, and 

 believe them to do better with it. They state, 

 that if allowed the chicks will attack pods of red 

 pepper eagerly ; and it is just possible that the 

 old popular superstition of putting a peppercorn 

 down the throat of each poult may have been 

 origi^ially based upon some such observation. 

 The condiment prescription No. 2, given on page 

 1 99, may be of considerable service if used with 

 discretion, giving it only to chicks that seem 

 flagging, or on wet days. It is used by many 

 turkey-raisers in France, for whom it was origin- 

 ally devised by a French chemist, who also 

 raised turkeys himself, and who found its value 

 in bringing his birds through the critical weeks 

 before the "shooting of the red." 



In America many turkeys get no feeding at 

 all during the summer, after being turned loose ; 

 and many others only a feed of corn at night, 

 given partly to supplement what they pick up, 

 and partly to keep them in the habit of coming 

 home : they make their growth on vegetable 

 food and insects, and are found to be larger as 

 well as more healthy in the fall. On English farms 

 they would not often get enough in this way, 

 though they will make splendid birds when 

 allowed to run wild on unlimited space in park 

 or covert. In some places it is still customary 

 for large farmers to buy young birds from the 

 smaller ones about the end of August, and turn 

 them into the stubbles, where they can get 



plenty of food for some time ; but this plan is 

 less followed since other poultry are kept so 

 much more largely upon the farms. As a rule 

 English turkeys have to be regularly fed, and 

 the best breeders continue some soft food till the 

 poults are at least four months old, and even 

 longer, though gradually more grain is given in 

 proportion. Ground oats and skim milk, and 

 whole white oats, make the whitest flesh, and 

 turkeys thus fed present the best appearance ; 

 but in some districts this food would be too 

 expensive. They ought not to be allowed to 

 feed themselves really fat until the time for the 

 final fattening approaches ; such as fatten too 

 early not being later on so fine in quality, and 

 being seldom so fine in frame. The great 

 object during the earlier months should be to 

 keep in vigorous health and to make frame, 

 towards which some cut bone is a great 

 assistance. 



About six to eight weeks old, when nearly 

 feathered, the poults will begin to try to perch 

 about on walls and fences, and should be 

 encouraged, if at all convenient, to roost either 

 in trees or on the beams of some open shed. 

 They should not be crowded too many together, 

 and as they grow up, should be sorted out a 

 little, and those to be kept for stock taken out 

 from the rest. Once having " shot the red " and 

 got fairly started on their open-air life, they are 

 extremely hardy as regards any weather, and no 

 further anxiety need be felt on that score ; if on 

 the other hand shut up to roost in closed houses, 

 there is likely to be a great deal of trouble from 

 colds and " swelled head." This last complaint 

 is the form in which loss most frequently occurs 

 in rearing turkeys, and is doubtless the turkey 

 form of catarrhal roup. The best treatment is 

 to pen the birds in a large barn or shed with 

 plenty of air, but no draughts, fomenting the 

 heads with hot water in which poppy heads are 

 infused, and giving either mild doses of Epsom 

 salts, or almost any approved roup pills, but 

 dividing these so as to give smaller doses not 

 less than four times a day. This complaint 

 usually occurs only in birds too much confined 

 at night, scarcely ever attacking such as roost 

 out of doors, or in a tall shed entirely open on 

 one side to the weather. The other most usual 

 trouble of intestinal irritation or diarrhoea has 

 already been mentioned, together with the 

 methods by which it can be warded off. In 

 some places large flocks are still placed under 

 the care of a boy, and driven some distance 

 from their roosting place to any good foraging 

 ground. If the space is ample this system pays 

 very well, as the birds need little other feeding 

 until the time for fattening arrivcb, but it only 



