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Turkey profitability

 
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Hello everyone, I was wondering if any of you raise turkeys profitably? The last two years I've raised a few for personal use and enjoyed them, now that I'm farming as a career, when I do the math, I don't know if I can make it work. We would be raising bourbon reds, assuming I had to buy all feed I'm calculating 107/ bird without my labor... I hope to reduce the imported feed, don't we all? But can't factor that into the business plan. Thanks for any input.
 
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Location: Graham, Washington [Zone 7b, 47.041 Latitude] 41inches average annual rainfall, cool summer drought
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I found this thread off-forum to be a good starting point.

On costs, many states permit a small farm to butcher and sell a limited number of poultry per year without getting into any of the regulation. In my own state that number is 1,000 chickens or 100 of any other poultry breed.

IMHO, buying feed in any format other than by the ton is mostly for homesteaders growing their own food for health or hobby reasons [or in a whole-system wherein the animals are workers as well as a product.]
 
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Location: In a rain shadow - Fremont County, Southern CO
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i am interested in this too.
i plan to add turkeys next year (looking at narragansetts) and have been trying to work out the feed costs/amounts.

@ Matthew -
do you plan to rotate/free range the turkeys? from my understanding, they will get more of their food via forage that chickens, the downside is they require a higher protein feed than chickens.

i am hoping to rotate my future turkeys through our orchard/food mess and see how that works.

 
Matthew Sargent
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Yes I will be rotating them behind my hogs on 9 acres, I'm in the process of developing this area into a savannah, it was a hay field. So it has good grass, I just can't figure out calculating feed requirements, and if I was to rely soley upon imported feed the price point seems high even for a niche market. The thread linked above was great but it does seem as if most of those people are making their money off poults, so maybe that's the direction to head.
 
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