As you're probably aware by now, we're selling Thanksgiving Dinner Baskets this year, the centerpiece of which is what we think are some of the most humanely treated heritage turkeys in the greater Seattle area. We started back in May with Stage 1: Brooding the turkeys under heat lamps in a rat proof barn stall. We moved to Stage 2 at 8 weeks: Daily pasture moves in 4 turkey tractors. Now, 6 and a half weeks later, we've moved to Stage 3. They've outgrown their 10ft x 5ft turkey tractors and need more space to take dust baths, forage for food, and exhibit their other essential turkey behaviors. As you can see in the photo above, we've opened the doors on the tractors and make an enclosed ring with electrified poultry netting. This should keep the turkeys in--but more importantly--the predators out. Here's a video one day after moving to stage three of a bunch of content turkeys.
And another video of some classic turkey dust bathing. They fluff their feathers in dirt to get small particles onto their skin. This helps with insect/parasite control.
So far so good! No problems to report. The logistics of moving the flock to a new paddock are going to be a little more complicated than I originally thought (although I bought two nets, I didn't quite grasp the geometry involved). I will keep you posted.
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