How to make cages for turkeys with your own hands

Growing a turkey at home is not the easiest thing to do. These birds have a very difficult disposition, and it is quite difficult to please them. But before you bring the first birds to your site, you need to decide where they will live. If the future breeder does not have enough territory to grow turkeys, then the only way out is to keep these birds in cages. Cages for turkeys can be bought in specialized stores, or you can make it yourself. We will describe how to do this below.

Pros and cons of cell content

Keeping turkeys in a cage, according to many breeders, is not quite the right decision. Such conditions are not natural for these birds. In addition, such birds, as a rule, are deprived of full-fledged grazing in the fresh air. But this is more typical for breeding turkeys on an industrial scale on large farmlands.

If the turkeys are bred for the household, and spend enough time outdoors, then such content will be quite acceptable. In addition, this method of content has several other advantages:

• significant feed savings;
• lack of bedding;
• efficient use of space;
• the possibility of keeping more birds.

Large breeds can easily turn it over, causing serious injury to themselves, which can be fatal.

Rules for placing turkeys in a cage

In order for turkeys not to feel severe discomfort from such content, the following conditions must be met:

1. Each male must be kept separately. First of all, this is done for their safety. After all, two males in one cage can fight and injure each other. Secondly, the males are quite large, so they will be very crowded together.
2. Up to two females can be placed in each cage. Females are smaller than males and can get along well together. But such placement is possible only if each bird has free access to food and water. Placing more than two turkeys in one cage can lead to a weakening of their reproductive ability.
3. Only hatched turkeys should be placed in a brooder – a special cage that acts as a hen. It must be equipped with heating elements and lighting lamps that create the necessary conditions for the optimal growth of each turkey.

Do-it-yourself cages for turkeys with a photo

Purchased cages for turkeys are almost impossible to find on sale, and their cost can beat off even the strongest desire to breed this bird at home. Therefore, the best way out in this situation is to make cages for turkeys on your own. Moreover, dealing 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.

Of the tools you may need:

• pencil;
• a hammer;
• electric jig saw;
• screwdriver;
• nippers.

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 a screwdriver.

As for the materials, they cannot be replaced. Therefore, you will need to prepare in advance:

• slats or bars made of wood;
• plywood;
• plastic panel;
• metal mesh with small cells;
• handles;
• 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 cartridge, a piece of cable and a switch.

Making a cage for young turkeys

Young turkey poults do not need as much space as adult birds, but they still should not sit in cramped quarters. Therefore, when calculating the dimensions, it is necessary to take into account the number of chicks. Our cage will measure 150×0,75 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. On the front there should be doors through which it will be convenient to take care of the chicks. The doors should be visible, because in a deaf cage, 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 along which the chicks will walk, and through which their droppings will fall down. And the lower part is a pallet where the litter will fall.

First of all, it is necessary to prepare future walls. To do this, you need to take two sheets of plywood with dimensions of 150×150 cm. They must be cut into two halves. The result will be 4 segments with dimensions of 150×0,75 cm. Two segments will go to the ceiling and back wall. And the remaining two segments will need to be cut into two more parts, so that squares of 0,75×0,75 cm are obtained – these will be the side walls. Now you need to make a frame from rails or beams, using self-tapping screws and metal corners for their fastening. Prepared cuts 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 the rails according to the size of the floor. In our case, this is 150×0,75 cm. A piece of metal mesh must be attached to it.

The floor pallet is also made, but instead of a metal mesh, a plastic panel is attached to the frame of the rails. If you take plywood instead, then under the influence of litter, it will quickly become unusable.

The front doors are made according to the same principle: a metal mesh is attached to the frame of the rails. But unlike the floor, you still need to attach handles and hinges to them. Finished doors are hung on the frame with hinges.

The cell is almost ready. It remains only to make lighting in it by connecting the cable, cartridge and switch.

Making a cage for an adult bird

The principle of making a cage for growing young and adults is very similar to making a cage for chicks. They will differ in some features:

1. Cell size. Adults are larger than chicks and need more space. Therefore, the optimal size for such a cage would be 200×100 cm.
2. Wall transparency. For adults, deaf cells are not suitable. 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.

   

The production of such cells does not take much time. And the purchase of all materials will cost significantly less than buying a finished cage. But in its manufacture, it is necessary to focus not on the amount of material, but on the convenience of finding a bird in it.