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Raising a turkey at home is not the easiest task. These birds have a very difficult disposition, and it is quite difficult to please them. But before you bring the first birds onto your property, you need to decide where they will live. If the future breeder does not have sufficient territory for raising turkeys, then the only solution is to keep these birds in cages. Cages for turkeys can be bought in specialized stores, or you can make them yourself. We will tell you how to do this below.
Pros and cons of cellular housing
Keeping turkeys in a cage, according to many breeders, is not entirely the right decision. Such conditions are not natural for these birds. In addition, such birds, as a rule, are deprived of adequate grazing in the fresh air. But this is more typical for breeding turkeys on an industrial scale on large farm lands.
If the turkeys are bred for household use and spend a sufficient amount of time in the fresh air, then such keeping will be quite acceptable. In addition, this method of maintenance has several other advantages:
- significant feed savings;
- lack of bedding;
- efficient use of space;
- possibility of keeping more birds.
Large breeds can easily tip it over, causing serious injuries that can lead to death.
Rules for placing turkeys in a cage
In order for turkeys not to feel severe discomfort from such housing, the following conditions must be met:
- Each male must be kept separately. First of all, this is done for their safety. After all, two males in the same cage can fight and injure each other. Secondly, males are quite large in size, so they will be very crowded together.
- Each cage can accommodate up to two females. Females are smaller than males and can get along well together. But such placement is only possible if each bird has free access to food and water. Placing more than two turkeys in the same cage can result in reduced reproductive capacity.
- Only hatched turkey chicks should be placed in a brooder - a special cage that acts as a brood hen. It should be equipped with heating elements and lighting lamps that create the necessary conditions for optimal growth of each turkey chick.
DIY cages for turkeys with photos
Purchased cages for turkeys are almost impossible to find on sale, and their cost can discourage even the strongest desire to breed this bird at home. Therefore, the best solution in this situation is to make cages for turkeys yourself. Moreover, coping with this is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance.
Tools and materials
Before starting work, you need to make sure that you have all the necessary tools and materials at hand.
Tools you may need:
- pencil;
- hammer;
- electric jigsaw;
- screwdriver;
- wire cutters
If suddenly some tools are not at hand, do not despair. You can always think of something to replace them with, for example, instead of a jigsaw you can use a saw, and a screwdriver can be replaced with a drill and screwdriver.
As for materials, they cannot be replaced. Therefore, you will need to prepare in advance:
- slats or beams made of wood;
- plywood;
- plastic panel;
- metal mesh with small cells;
- pens;
- loops;
- screws and metal corners.
If the future cage will be used as a brooder for young animals, then in addition to this list, you will also need heating elements, a lamp with a socket, a piece of cable and a switch.
Making a cage for young turkeys
Young turkeys don't need as much space as older birds, but they still shouldn't be cramped. Therefore, when calculating the dimensions, it is necessary to take into account the number of chicks. Our cage will have dimensions of 150x0.75 cm and a height of 0.75 cm, but other sizes can be used if necessary.
The cage itself will consist of a frame of slats or beams, to which plywood will be attached, acting as the walls of the cage. There should be doors on the front through which it will be convenient to care for the chicks. The doors should be visible, because in a blind cage the young chicks will feel uncomfortable, and the breeder will not see what is happening there. The floor for young chicks will consist of two parts.The first part, the upper one, is a metal mesh on which the chicks will walk, and through which their droppings will fall down. And the lower part is a tray where the droppings will fall.
First of all, we need to prepare the future walls. To do this, you need to take two sheets of plywood with dimensions of 150x150 cm. They must be cut into two halves. As a result, you will get 4 segments with dimensions of 150x0.75 cm. Two segments will go to the ceiling and back wall. And the remaining two sections will need to be cut into two more parts, so that you get squares of 0.75x0.75 cm - these will be the side walls. Now you need to make a frame from slats or beams, using self-tapping screws and metal corners to fasten them. Prepared pieces of plywood must be attached to the finished frame.
Now that the frame is ready, you can start making the floor. To do this, you need to put together a frame from slats according to the size of the floor. In our case, it is 150x0.75 cm. You need to attach a piece of metal mesh to it.
The floor tray is made in the same way, but instead of a metal mesh, a plastic panel is attached to a frame of slats. If you take plywood instead, it will quickly become unusable under the influence of droppings.
The front doors are made using the same principle: a metal mesh is attached to a frame made of slats. But unlike the floor, you still need to attach handles and hinges to them. The finished doors are hung on the frame using hinges.
The cage is almost ready. All that remains is to make lighting in it by connecting the cable, socket and switch.
Making a cage for an adult bird
The principle of making a cage for grown young animals and adults is very similar to making a cage for chicks. They will differ in some features:
- Cell size. Adults are larger than chicks and need more space. Therefore, the optimal size for such a cage would be 200x100 cm.
- Transparency of the walls. Blind cages are not suitable for adults. They will be very nervous in them. Therefore, for the manufacture of all walls it is necessary to use a metal mesh, and not sheets of plywood.
Making such cells will not take much time. And purchasing all the materials will cost significantly less than purchasing a finished cage. But when making it, you need to focus not on the amount of material, but on the convenience of the bird being in it.
