There are certain moments on a homestead when you realize that the plan has worked… maybe a little too well.
For us, this is one of those moments.
The time has officially come to rehome some of our turkeys.
And I’ll admit, I’m a little sad about it.
Our turkey journey has been one of the most unexpectedly fun parts of growing J & J Homestead. Before we had them, I don’t think I fully appreciated just how much personality turkeys have.
They follow you around.
They talk to you.
They investigate everything you’re doing.
The males puff themselves up and strut around like they own the entire property.
And the hens give us these absolutely enormous, beautiful eggs.
We really, really like having turkeys.
But there’s another side of homesteading that isn’t always quite as fun to talk about:
Sometimes you have to make decisions based on what’s best for the entire homestead—not just which animals you want to keep.
And right now, we have a few too many boys.
How Our Turkey Adventure Started
When we first decided to incorporate turkeys into our homestead plan, we were lucky enough to find four adult turkey hens that needed a new home.
Naturally, we said yes. I had been causally looking at adding turkeys for some time.
Those four girls became the beginning of our little turkey flock, and it didn’t take long before we realized that turkeys were definitely something we wanted to continue raising.
Unfortunately, homesteading doesn’t always go according to plan.
At one point, we lost one of our turkey hens to a predator. That was incredibly disappointing, but it didn’t derail our overall goal. We still wanted to build a sustainable turkey flock of our own, ideally keeping hens for eggs and eventually hatching some of our own poults. Which meant we needed to grow the flock.
And that’s where things got interesting.
Then Jason Came Home With a Box of Turkey Poults
In May, we found another homesteader selling turkey poults. Even better, they had two breeds we were excited about:
Black Slate and Narragansett turkeys.
We jumped at the opportunity. And the next thing I knew, Jason was coming home carrying a cardboard box filled with 10 tiny turkey poults. Because that’s how these things happen on a homestead.
One minute you’re casually discussing expanding the turkey flock. The next minute there’s a cardboard box making suspicious peeping noises sitting in your house.
We were officially raising turkey poults.
The Great Turkey Gender Mystery
There was just one tiny problem. We had absolutely no idea how many males and females we had.
Unlike buying sexed chicks from a hatchery, determining the sex of young turkey poults can be difficult, particularly when you’re still learning what to look for.
So we watched. And waited. And guessed.
And changed our guesses. Then changed them again.
Our ideal scenario would have been something like two or three males with the remaining birds being hens. That would have given us plenty of females for egg production while allowing us to keep a tom for future breeding.
For quite a while, we thought we might have gotten lucky. Then the strutting started. And the snoods started getting bigger. And suddenly we were looking around the turkey run thinking…
“Wait a minute. Is that ANOTHER male?”
Yep.
We Have a Lot of Male Turkeys
As they’ve matured, it’s become increasingly obvious that we didn’t exactly hit the turkey-gender lottery. Right now, it looks like we have approximately five or six males.
That’s a lot of testosterone wandering around one turkey run. At the moment, everyone is actually getting along surprisingly well.
The males strut. They show off. They puff themselves up.
They occasionally look like they’re participating in some sort of highly competitive turkey fashion show.
But overall, things are peaceful. The problem is that we know that may not last forever.
Can You Keep Multiple Male Turkeys Together?
Multiple young male turkeys may coexist peacefully, especially when they’ve been raised together.
But as toms reach sexual maturity, flock dynamics can change.
Competition over hens can increase. Dominance behavior can become more pronounced. Fighting can occur. Hens can also receive too much attention when there are too many males competing for a relatively small number of females.
That’s something we would rather address before it becomes a problem.
Because one of the biggest lessons we’ve learned on the homestead is that prevention is usually easier than dealing with the aftermath.
We don’t need five or six breeding toms.
And our hens certainly don’t need five or six boyfriends.
And Then There’s the Cost of Feeding Turkeys
There’s also a very practical consideration:
Feed isn’t free.
If you’ve ever raised full-size turkeys, you already know where I’m going with this.
Turkeys can eat. A LOT.
When you’re feeding animals on a homestead, every animal needs to have a purpose that makes sense within the bigger picture.
That doesn’t necessarily mean every animal has to generate income. We certainly have animals around here whose primary job description could probably be summarized as “make us happy.”
But when we’re talking about several large male turkeys consuming feed every single day, we have to consider whether keeping all of them makes sense.
Our hens produce eggs.
We want to keep a male for breeding.
But feeding five or six mature toms that aren’t needed for our breeding program and may eventually start creating chaos?
That’s probably not the best use of our feed budget.
Especially considering how much poultry feed we’re already buying around here!
So, It’s Time to Rehome Some Turkeys
And that’s where we are now.
We’re going to start looking for new homes for several of our male Black Slate and Narragansett turkeys.
I’d much rather make this decision now, while everyone is healthy and getting along, than wait until fighting or other flock problems force us to make the decision quickly.
Hopefully, we can find homes where they’ll fit into someone else’s homestead plans.
Although…
I have to admit that the timing is slightly unfortunate.
Because we’re approaching fall.
And Thanksgiving isn’t exactly that far away.
So when someone tells me they’re interested in giving one of our boys a “good home,” I’m probably better off not asking too many follow-up questions.
You know what I mean.
😂
Such is life when you’re a turkey in America.
Rehoming Animals Is Part of Homestead Life
This is also one of those experiences that highlights something important about homesteading.
You can’t keep everything.
When we first started expanding our homestead, I think it was easier to look at every animal individually.
You get attached.
You learn their personalities.
You enjoy watching them grow.
And suddenly you have 10 adorable turkey poults running around. But those tiny poults eventually become very large adult turkeys. And sometimes your 10 adorable poults turn out to contain far more males than your homestead actually needs.
That’s when you have to stop thinking only about the individual bird and start thinking about the health and sustainability of the entire flock.
Do we have enough space?
Are the animals getting along?
Are our hens safe from excessive breeding pressure?
How much feed are we buying?
How many breeding males do we realistically need?
Can we continue providing the level of care we want every animal to receive?
Those questions matter.
And sometimes the responsible answer is:
It’s time for some animals to move on.
Sometimes Homesteading Means Letting Go
I think there’s a tendency to romanticize homesteading. And don’t get me wrong—there are plenty of moments that deserve to be romanticized.
Watching baby poults explore for the first time.
Hearing a turkey gobble back when you talk to him.
Collecting a giant speckled turkey egg.
Watching an enormous tom strut around like he’s the most impressive creature ever placed on planet Earth.
Those moments are wonderful. But homesteading is also about management, responsibility, sustainability and making decisions. Sometimes you plant something and it fails. Sometimes predators find a weakness in your setup. Sometimes you hatch too many roosters (and we do!). And sometimes you buy 10 turkey poults and discover that Mother Nature apparently decided you needed an entire fraternity.
You adjust.
You learn.
You make the best decision you can with the information you have.
And then you keep going.
For us, that means saying goodbye to a few of our boys.
I’m going to miss seeing all of them strutting around together.
But ultimately, reducing the number of males should make our turkey flock calmer, more manageable and more sustainable.
And who knows?
Maybe next spring we’ll finally get to experience the next chapter of this adventure:
Hatching our very own J & J Homestead turkey poults.
Although after this experience, I might be putting in a special request.
More girls, please.
Leave a Reply