Agriculture Reporter

Traditionally, people have kept free-range poultry for consumption or sale on a small-scale.
The consumption and demand for free-range poultry is on the increase as consumers are slowly becoming more conscious of benefits of healthy eating.
Indigenous poultry birds include road runner chickens, ducks, turkeys, guinea fowls and geese.
Zimbabwe Free Range Poultry Association is presently engaged in efforts to commercialise production of indigenous poultry to improve food security, nutrition and household income.
The association is promoting sustainable free-range poultry production and marketing.
One of the birds that has become popular with farmers is the turkey.
Raising turkeys is no different from keeping chickens; in fact, the birds are easier to raise.
The one problem with turkeys is that they are big, ungainly birds with the larger breeds being so big they cannot breed naturally.
The males are so heavy they find it difficult to mount the females successfully and the females often get scratched and injured after the many attempts.
The other problem with turkeys is again related to their size; when they lay their eggs, because they are so large and cumbersome, they often end up standing on their eggs and breaking them.
This is a drawback if you are trying to breed large turkeys.
The good news is that there are smaller breeds of turkeys too, that have no trouble breeding, Many turkey breeds can live between 10 and 15 years.
Raising turkeys from eggs or poults
Turkeys can be raised by breeding them, or incubating the eggs with either an electric incubator or a broody hen.
Some growers prefer to buy poults at five or six weeks as this cuts down on the feeding time, and you are assured of cutting losses as poults at this age are stronger and less susceptible to illnesses.
House them until they are between 24-28 weeks before you slaughter or dispatch your turkeys.
Feeding adult turkeys
Raising turkeys organically will give you a great tasting meat as long as you give them plenty of space to forage for their food and access the free protein available to them in this way.
Protein is important to all poultry but especially so for turkeys that have a higher need for protein than chickens.
By allowing your turkeys to free-range, they will still need a good organic commercial feed in addition to what they can catch for themselves.
If you are keeping a few turkeys, then you should only buy enough feed for two to four months to prevent feeding your birds rancid feed as the oils in the feed go off very quickly.
Keep feed in a cool and dry place.
Feed should be given to the turkeys on a free-choice basis. It should be available at all times.
Diseases and pests
Blackheads
Turkeys are not prone to diseases compared to chickens.
But they are affected by diseases such as blackhead or histomoniasis.
This is a parasite that lives in earthworms that have eaten faecal worms from poultry droppings containing the parasite.
Symptoms include bright yellow droppings, droopiness, diarrhoea and weight-loss.
If blackhead goes untreated, turkeys will die. Preventing blackhead is to leave a field that you have had turkeys on to rest for at least 12 months before putting them back on that land.
If you have been running chickens on that land and you want to follow with turkeys, it would be best to wait up to 3 years before doing so.
By waiting this period you are then giving enough time to pass to break the cycle of the parasites and therefore ensuring that you do not re-infect your stock.
Coccidiosis
Like chickens, turkeys also get coccidiosis. Again, cleanliness when raising turkeys is the key in cutting down on the chances of getting this fatal poultry disease.
Lice
Turkeys get lice, just like chickens.
Therefore make sure that you treat them regularly with a lice powder that is suitable for raising organic turkeys.
Organic methods of treating turkeys
To keep down internal parasites, it is also worth chopping up a couple of cloves of garlic and adding it to yoghurt mash at least twice a week.
For raising young poults, you can feed them on homemade brown bread soaked in milk, or sour-milk with a dash of red pepper.